JC Jones

Citations: Solo Bass
Kadima Collective KCR 36

Alexandre St-Onge

Ailleurs

& Records 18

Ingebrigt Håker Flaten

Birds – Solo Electric

Tektite Records No #

Joëlle Léandre

Wols Circus: 12 compositions pour contrebasse d’après 12 gravures de Wols

Galerie Hus HUS 112

Something In The Air: The Liberation of the Unaccompanied Bass Solo

By Ken Waxman

Of all the instruments that needed the advances of free music in the 20th century to show off its true character, it has been the double bass which benefitted the most from this situation. Relegated to decorative, scene setting or mere rhythmic functions in conventional classical and jazz performances, it was only when bassists were able to express themselves without restraint that their role grew. By the 21st century in fact, solo bass recitals became as commonplace as those by other instrumentalists. The reason, as these CDs demonstrate, is the arrival of performers who can extract a multiplicity of novel tones, timbres and textures from four tautly wound strings.

Take Paris-based Joëlle Léandre for instance. Someone who early in her career played pieces composed specifically for her by the likes of John Cage and Giacinto Scelsi; she’s now fully committed to free expression. Wols circus: 12 compositions pour contrebasse d'après 12 gravures de Wols Galerie Hus HUS 112) is particularly fascinating. Using only a bow, the strings, her instrument’s body and her own vocal inflections, Léandre interprets musically engravings by Surrealist artist Otto Wols (1913-1951). Created from 1942-1945, when the Berlin-born Wols was interned as an “enemy foreigner” in France, where he lived from 1932 until his death, the images are as abstract as they are affecting. Making no attempt to literally replicate the drawings in music, Léandre’s sound interpretations move from stentorian to muted, with indistinct, spiccato scrubs as common as Jew’s harp-like twangs. Especially noteworthy is the build-up and release reflected on the successive Topographie, Drei Vingnetten auf einem Blatt and Keiner Fleck. With each sequence three minutes, first abrasive then mellow string sawing fades into occasional arco slides and sul tasto pops with the air vibrated by the bow audible as well. The climax occurs as unison basso string strokes and Léandre’s vocal growls give way to a contrapuntal duet between sharp instrumental lines. Throughout the bull fiddler provides personalized view of Wols’ sketches with additional string inventions ranging from squeeze-toy peeps to tremolo bass slaps. Nonetheless the defining performance occurs with Dunkle Stadt, when with intensifying torque she moves from minisculely framed below-the-bridge plucks to staccato string chirps contrapuntally layered with vocalized faux lyric soprano accents.

Unlike Léandre, whose 12 acoustic selections were recorded at one live concert, French-Israeli bassist JC Jones’ Citations: Solo Bass Kadima Collective KCR 36 is made up of 17 untitled compositions and improvisations from 2008 to 2012 using acoustic bass or electro-acoustic bass with live electronics. To be honest the computer processes aren’t that prominent; but are mostly used to provide a constant pizzicato undercurrent, while Jones’ arco buzzes add multiphonic sweeps or balladic decorations to the selections. More individual are the improvisations, which had sometimes been created to accompany dancers. On the 11th track for instance, rosin seems to be sliding off the bas strings as Jones slaps them agitato and tremolo so that soundboard thumps resonate throughout the instrument’s body. Buzzing spiccato action with banjo-like plucks from below the bridge succeed spanked string rhythms on the 15th track; while on the 5th Jones manages to sound as if he’s manipulating two basses at once without overdubbing. Here he plucks and shakes the strings in the instrument’s top range while ruggedly double and triple-stopping from the bottom, resulting in snaps, knocks and pops ricocheting back onto one another. Moreover a track such as 17 sums up all the strategies preceding it as Jones manages to isolate three separate theme variations. Not only are stentorian thumps and undulating bow motions heard, but so too is a third tremolo impulse harmonized alongside the first two.

If Jones’ electronic interface is limited than Montreal-based Alexandre St-Onge and Norwegian-in-Austin Ingebrigt Håker Flaten draw more textures to their finger tips by utilizing amplified electric basses on their solos sessions. Member of bands such as Klaxon Gueule , as well as studying for his PhD in art, St-Onge describes himself as a sound performer and the six selections on Ailleurs & Records 18 are studded as much with signal-processed drones and splutters as reflective string modulations. Layering the sequences with loops that replicated sounds ranging from ring-modulator whooshes to bell ringing and distorted flanges, the basic double bass-like rhythmic qualities of the instrument are muted. Only on the 5th track does the tremolo, dial-twisting exposition pull back enough for a semi-acoustic interlude. Here juddering bass-string plucks can be heard contrapuntally advancing the narrative, which is still decorated with additional droning lines and wiggling voltage-affiliated cries. The achievement of Ailleurs is that by mutating its intonation and freeing the bass from its limitations as a purely rhythmic instrument a new interface appears. The reverberating result is of an expansive formula that evocatively builds on expected bull fiddle timbres the way a realistic photograph could be the basis for a surrealistic art work.

As abstract in execution as St-Onge and as familiar with as many electronic extensions, on the six tracks which make up Birds – Solo Electric Tektite Records No # Håker Flaten at least follows the convention of titling his tracks. Known for his membership in bands such as The Thing and Atomic, he’s able to play the electric bass in such a way to suggest multiple instruments. The most breathtaking instance of this occurs on Chicago. Pulsating the top string of his highly amplified bass with spiccato pressure, Håker Flaten produces timbres that could as easily come from a bagpipe chanter or a piccolo trumpet. At the same time modulated feedback decorates that exposition, while at a legato theme is heard from the top guitar-like strings. Eventually this broken-octave display fades into measured stops. Mercurial and rubato many of the other tones in his improvisations sound as if they are extended by an e-bow. Take a track like Lucia. Here string slaps alternate with flanges that could come from backward running tapes, until a vigorous melody surmounts those sounds. Whistles, whooshes, crackles and other amplified flutters predominate throughout, but when Håker Flaten strikes or scrapes the strings with firecracker-like resonation, he confirms the true instrumental origin of the performances.

With the creativity on display on any one of these CDs so obvious, hearing the bass used merely for decorative or rhythmic functions in the future will likely be disappointing for many.

May 13, 2013

Günter Baby Sommer

Live in Jerusalem
Kadima Collective KCR 19

Ulher/Shibolet/Snir/Brenner/Mayer/Smith/Bymel

Yclept

Balance Point Acoustics BPA 014

Fraught with extra-musical baggage, the idea of a co-operative session between German and Israeli improvisers seems bizarre. Yet, as these first-rate CDs demonstrate, commitment to free-form experimentation and open-minded sound extension overcomes any number of polemics. The only people who likely will be surprised, shocked or offended by such cross-cultural understanding are those whose ignorance of Middle Eastern realpolitik is likewise endemic.

One of the most notable revelations of these discs is how well Israeli improvisers stack up when playing with the best from other countries: German drummer Günter Baby Sommer on Live in Jerusalem and German trumpeter Birgit Ulher and American bassist Damon Smith on Yclept. Despite ferocious anti-Israeli sentiments in some circles – encompassing in many cases another more pernicious “anti” – these players, based in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, are as idiosyncratic in their playing and open to new experience as committed improvisers anywhere. Condemning and boycotting them and other artists because of some of their government’s policies is nonsensical. In terms of sound, the Sommer session is more attuned to Free Jazz, while Free Music in its most basic form enlivens Yclept.

Acknowledged as one of the founding fathers of German Free Music, extroverted drummer Sommer has plied his trade with such local and international improvisers as pianists Ulrich Gumpert and Cecil Taylor, saxophonist Peter Brötzmann and trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith. He’s thus perfectly comfortable rolling, ruffing, smacking and stroking his drums no matter the situation. With the CD broken up into duos, trios and quartets – plus one solo drum feature – Sommer pulls out the heavy artillery when playing with soprano and baritone saxophonist Steve Horenstein – a transplanted American who has worked with trumpeter Bill Dixon – and tenor saxophonist and bass clarinetist Assif Tsachar – whose diasporic sojourn took place in New York in the company of heavy-hitters such as pianist Cooper-Moore and bassist William Parker.

Mixing shrill tangents, altissimo cries and subterranean slurs, each reedist takes full advantage of his instrument’s versatility. Hornenstein’s wriggling full-bore improvising abets a fantastic display of rim shots, ricochets and ratamacues from the drummer, while Tsachar shakes out diaphragm-pushed irregular notes half-speed. Other places quivering reed bites and screams face percussion rebounds, rattles and ruffs.

Cross-sticking a martial beat elsewhere, the percussionist’s whaps and resonating verbal cries provide the perfect left-right response to horn players’ creations in double counterpoint. Horenstein’s externally directed slurps and rattling blasts are also a contrapuntal challenge to Tsachar, who exhibits glossolalia-like runs on saxophone, plus sluicing stops on bass clarinet. Mediating on a couple of trio or quartet tracks and keeping the underlined beat steady is bassist JC Jones, who manages to work sul tasto colors in among his walking rhythms.

Just as fascinating is “Yo Yo Yo” with Sommer – who teaches music at the university level in his hometown of Dresden – trading licks with a trio of younger players: tenor saxophonist Yonatan Kretzmer, bassist clarinetist Yoni Silver and guitarist Yonatan Albalak. With an undertow of rumbles and rebounds, the drummer makes common cause with both horns in harmonic unity or when separately Silver puffs out chalumeau yawns and vibrations and Kretzmer sounds hocketing cries and reflux. Distinctively Albalak inflates the soundfield with sprays of slurred tremolo tones plus knob-twisted and wah-wah pedal processed distortions that introduce fortissimo alien wave forms to the interaction.

Sommer’s single run-in with a guitarist is multiplied by two as Ulher and Smith improvise on seven tracks recorded in Tel Aviv with a completely different set of Israeli players. Only soprano saxophonist Ariel Shibolet is a young veteran whose career includes playing with French bassist Joëlle Léandre when she was in Israel and California gigs with Smith, pianist Scott R. Loney and others. Similarly, Oakland-based Smith and Ulher from Hamburg have concertized in Europe and North America, with many older and younger free musicians. Meanwhile Tel Aviv-based guitarists Roni Brenner and Michel Mayer, drummer Ofer Bymel and tenor and soprano saxophonist Adi Snir are so far known, if at all, in Israel.

Proper showcase for all concerned is the 13½-minute fifth improvisation which initially alternates wood-vibrating smacks and sul ponticello sweeps from Smith, rattling smacks from Bymel, yelps and bites from the saxophonists and rubato tongue stretches from Ulher. As her growls and flutters transform into mulched tones and then to gusting grace notes, the saxophonists respond with thin whistling, Smith splatters and rips new textures from his bass –probably helped by laptop wizardry – and the guitarists thump and scratch downwards from strings to pick guards.

Elsewhere electronic wheezes make common cause with plinks plunks and rattles from the guitars as agitato, striated bass motions meet mute or foreshortened breaths, lip burbles or mouthpiece oscillations from the trumpeter. Featuring an equivalent trumpet-saxophone mix that matches moist tongue slaps and mouth percussion with quivering, squeaky reed bites, “Yclept 7” is an even more expressive group improv.

Here the electronic attachments to Ulher’s trumpet project wave forms skywards in counterpoint to agitato and inchoate string rubs from the guitars and dislocated vibrations from Snir and Shibolet. The tenor man swallows bird-like chirping so that it reemerges as thick, guttural blasts, as the soprano saxophonist mixes shrilling reed yelps with timbres that could come from a bagpipe chanter. Smith’s sul tasto rubs then spiccato jabs offset flat-line colored air movement from the saxophonists and Ulher’s tremolo triplets while Bymels’s steadying rat-tat-tats hold the beat and complete the sonic contact.

While it’s true that music may involve socio-political undertones – no matter how pure and questing it may seem – it’s equally true that uniting sophisticated musicians from different milieus can create notable discs like these. Anyone who would boycott artists from any country because of their government’s action is not only guilty of short-sighted malice, but doesn’t have enough faith in art’s transformation power. The 13 musicians represented on these CDs easily make the case for co-operation.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Live: 1. Bojoh#+ 2. Jassek#+& 3. Sommertime 4. Bast#& 5. Yo Yo Yo* 6. Sababa&

Personnel: Live: Yoni Silver (bass clarinet)*; Assif Tsachar (tenor saxophone and bass clarinet)&; Yonatan Kretzmer (tenor saxophone)*; Steve Horenstein (soprano or baritone saxophones)#; Yonatan Albalak (guitar)*; JC Jones (bass)+ and Günter “Baby” Sommer (drums) [all tracks]

Track Listing: Yclept: 1. Yclept 1 2. Yclept 2 3. Yclept 3 4. Yclept 4 5. Yclept 5 6. Yclept 6 7. Yclept 7

Personnel: Yclept: Birgit Ulher (trumpet, radio, mutes and speaker); Ariel Shibolet (soprano saxophone); Adi Snir (tenor and soprano saxophone); Roni Brenner and Michel Mayer (guitar); Damon Smith (bass and laptop) and Ofer Bymel (drums)

February 21, 2010

Joëlle Léandre-George Lewis

Transatlantic Visions
RogueArt ROG-0020

Joëlle Léandre

Live in Israel

Kadima KCR 17

Joëlle Léandre & Quentin SirJacq

Out of Nowhere

Ambiance MagnétiqueAM184

Joëlle Léandre & William Parker

Live at Dunois

Leo CD LR 535

Extended Play: Joëlle Léandre

By Ken Waxman

A masterful and distinctive soloist, French bassist Joëlle Léandre is versatile in any musical situation. These impressive CDs showcase her improvisational skills, while elsewhere the conservatory-trained Parisian is as comfortable with notated music, often performing studies written for her by composers such as John Cage and Giancinto Scelsi.

One of the two CDs that make up Joëlle Léandre Live in Israel (Kadima KCR 17 verifies her solo skill. This showcase includes exposition, theme variations and finale, without being conventionally programmatic. Equally strident and soothing, her string strokes include thick rhythmic scrubs and spiccato patterning that produce not only initial tones, but also corresponding echoes. Lyrical and romantic on one hand, her harsh string sweeping also expands with snaps, taps and banjo-like frails. Sometimes she vocalizes as she plays, adding another dimension to the performance.

Commanding on her own, she inserts herself into groups without fissure. In a sextet on the companion CD featuring Israeli reedists, her triple-stopped advances lock in with the horns’ contrapuntal key-slipping and trill spraying. Never upsetting balanced reed bites, her sul tasto expansions amplify the crunching dynamics of pianist Daniel Sarid, while her wood-slapping pulse operates in tandem with the flams and bounces of drummer Haggai Fershtman. In trio interaction with bassist JC Jones and saxophonist Stephen Horenstein, she lets the other bassist time-keep with col legno stops, while she string-snaps and pumps. Her bel canto warbling not only adds another texture, but also joins in double counterpoint with the saxophonist’s rubato tonguing.

More reductive, Joëlle Léandre & William Parker Live at Dunois (Leo CD LR 535 captures a bravura showcase for Léandre and Manhattan’s William Parker, whose jazz-honed techniques are as celebrated as hers. Performance roles are defined: Parker thumps, walks and slaps in pedal point, while Léandre uses her bow to swirl rococo tinctures that encompass agitated peaks and valleys of flying spiccato. This isn’t a brawl but an expression of mutual respect. At points both combine strokes as polyphonic textures rappel every which way. Reaching an intermezzo of floating concussion and friction, the two fuse as if they were playing an eight-stringed bas. Unbroken portamento runs echoing in double counterpoint, although each maintains individual identity.

As with the Stone Quartet in Guelph, Léandre has an affinity for brass and piano players. Joëlle Léandre-George Lewis Transatlantic Visions (RogueArt ROG-0020 and Joëlle Léandre & Quentin Sirjacq Out of Nowhere (Ambiance MagnétiqueAM184 confirm this. The first is a meeting between the bassist and American trombonist Lewis, with whom she has worked for decades. Sirjacq is a French pianist she has just begun to partner. Familiarity and novelty produce equivalently outstanding CDs.

Chamber music-like in its initial delicacy, her duet with the pianist becomes intense as vibrating bass harmonies encourage Sirjacq to toughen his output. Soon her jagged arpeggios and glissandi are met by metronomic pounding, key fanning and internal string plucking from the pianist. Anything but equal temperament, stopped soundboard buzzes on “Ruin” are joined by church-bell like gongs from Sirjacq, as Léandre doubles her sul ponticello bowing, while growling nonsense syllables. In the penultimate “Awakening” her quivering bowing is bisected by a flurry of kinetic key patterns. Finally “Closing” mates her flamenco-like rubs with his construction of an edifice of expansive arpeggios and cascading chording; reintroducing the theme for musical closure.

In contrast to the tentative exposition on Out of Nowhere, Léandre and Lewis are fully attuned from the get-go and stay that way. Announcing herself with a guttural snarl, at points she vocalizes alongside her string strokes. In addition to sweeping glissandi and staccato string-scouring, Léandre yowls as Lewis’ lows gutbucket tones. In response to her sul tasto runs, the trombonist exposes rotund tones and rubato yelps. If he showcases subterranean grace notes from inside his horn, she smacks the strings col legno. Sounding as if they could stretch their instruments tessitura indefinitely, they reach a climax at the half-way point as glottal stops from Lewis are complemented by pumped arpeggios and contrapuntal strumming from Léandre.

But perhaps the most palpable testimony to Léandre’s sonic versatility is the tracks she shares with oud player/vocalist Sameer Makhoul on Live in Israel. Despite the oud’s five pairs of strings compared to her four, she manages to advance buzzing timbres that perfectly match his breakneck finger-picking. Not only that, but her rhythmic breaths and free-form chanting complement his vocalized glossolalia so that the two sound as if they’re performing a Middle Eastern operetta.

-- For Whole Note Vol. 15 #1

September 4, 2009

Joëlle Léandre

Live in Israel
Kadima KCR 17

Joëlle Léandre & William Parker

Live at Dunois

Leo CD LR 535

Joëlle Léandre-George Lewis

Transatlantic Visions

RogueArt ROG-0020

Joëlle Léandre & Quentin SirJacq

Out of Nowhere

Ambiance MagnétiqueAM184

Extended Play: Joëlle Léandre

By Ken Waxman

A masterful and distinctive soloist, French bassist Joëlle Léandre is versatile in any musical situation. These impressive CDs showcase her improvisational skills, while elsewhere the conservatory-trained Parisian is as comfortable with notated music, often performing studies written for her by composers such as John Cage and Giancinto Scelsi.

One of the two CDs that make up Joëlle Léandre Live in Israel (Kadima KCR 17 verifies her solo skill. This showcase includes exposition, theme variations and finale, without being conventionally programmatic. Equally strident and soothing, her string strokes include thick rhythmic scrubs and spiccato patterning that produce not only initial tones, but also corresponding echoes. Lyrical and romantic on one hand, her harsh string sweeping also expands with snaps, taps and banjo-like frails. Sometimes she vocalizes as she plays, adding another dimension to the performance.

Commanding on her own, she inserts herself into groups without fissure. In a sextet on the companion CD featuring Israeli reedists, her triple-stopped advances lock in with the horns’ contrapuntal key-slipping and trill spraying. Never upsetting balanced reed bites, her sul tasto expansions amplify the crunching dynamics of pianist Daniel Sarid, while her wood-slapping pulse operates in tandem with the flams and bounces of drummer Haggai Fershtman. In trio interaction with bassist JC Jones and saxophonist Stephen Horenstein, she lets the other bassist time-keep with col legno stops, while she string-snaps and pumps. Her bel canto warbling not only adds another texture, but also joins in double counterpoint with the saxophonist’s rubato tonguing.

More reductive, Joëlle Léandre & William Parker Live at Dunois (Leo CD LR 535 captures a bravura showcase for Léandre and Manhattan’s William Parker, whose jazz-honed techniques are as celebrated as hers. Performance roles are defined: Parker thumps, walks and slaps in pedal point, while Léandre uses her bow to swirl rococo tinctures that encompass agitated peaks and valleys of flying spiccato. This isn’t a brawl but an expression of mutual respect. At points both combine strokes as polyphonic textures rappel every which way. Reaching an intermezzo of floating concussion and friction, the two fuse as if they were playing an eight-stringed bas. Unbroken portamento runs echoing in double counterpoint, although each maintains individual identity.

As with the Stone Quartet in Guelph, Léandre has an affinity for brass and piano players. Joëlle Léandre-George Lewis Transatlantic Visions (RogueArt ROG-0020 and Joëlle Léandre & Quentin Sirjacq Out of Nowhere (Ambiance MagnétiqueAM184 confirm this. The first is a meeting between the bassist and American trombonist Lewis, with whom she has worked for decades. Sirjacq is a French pianist she has just begun to partner. Familiarity and novelty produce equivalently outstanding CDs.

Chamber music-like in its initial delicacy, her duet with the pianist becomes intense as vibrating bass harmonies encourage Sirjacq to toughen his output. Soon her jagged arpeggios and glissandi are met by metronomic pounding, key fanning and internal string plucking from the pianist. Anything but equal temperament, stopped soundboard buzzes on “Ruin” are joined by church-bell like gongs from Sirjacq, as Léandre doubles her sul ponticello bowing, while growling nonsense syllables. In the penultimate “Awakening” her quivering bowing is bisected by a flurry of kinetic key patterns. Finally “Closing” mates her flamenco-like rubs with his construction of an edifice of expansive arpeggios and cascading chording; reintroducing the theme for musical closure.

In contrast to the tentative exposition on Out of Nowhere, Léandre and Lewis are fully attuned from the get-go and stay that way. Announcing herself with a guttural snarl, at points she vocalizes alongside her string strokes. In addition to sweeping glissandi and staccato string-scouring, Léandre yowls as Lewis’ lows gutbucket tones. In response to her sul tasto runs, the trombonist exposes rotund tones and rubato yelps. If he showcases subterranean grace notes from inside his horn, she smacks the strings col legno. Sounding as if they could stretch their instruments tessitura indefinitely, they reach a climax at the half-way point as glottal stops from Lewis are complemented by pumped arpeggios and contrapuntal strumming from Léandre.

But perhaps the most palpable testimony to Léandre’s sonic versatility is the tracks she shares with oud player/vocalist Sameer Makhoul on Live in Israel. Despite the oud’s five pairs of strings compared to her four, she manages to advance buzzing timbres that perfectly match his breakneck finger-picking. Not only that, but her rhythmic breaths and free-form chanting complement his vocalized glossolalia so that the two sound as if they’re performing a Middle Eastern operetta.

-- For Whole Note Vol. 15 #1

September 4, 2009

Joëlle Léandre & Quentin SirJacq

Out of Nowhere
Ambiance Magnétique AM 184

Joëlle Léandre & William Parker

Live at Dunois

Leo CD LR 535

Joëlle Léandre-George Lewis

Transatlantic Visions

RogueArt ROG-0020

Joëlle Léandre

Live in Israel

Kadima KCR 17

Joëlle Léandre & Quentin SirJacq

Out of Nowhere

Ambiance MagnétiqueAM184

Extended Play: Joëlle Léandre

By Ken Waxman

A masterful and distinctive soloist, French bassist Joëlle Léandre is versatile in any musical situation. These impressive CDs showcase her improvisational skills, while elsewhere the conservatory-trained Parisian is as comfortable with notated music, often performing studies written for her by composers such as John Cage and Giancinto Scelsi.

One of the two CDs that make up Joëlle Léandre Live in Israel (Kadima KCR 17 verifies her solo skill. This showcase includes exposition, theme variations and finale, without being conventionally programmatic. Equally strident and soothing, her string strokes include thick rhythmic scrubs and spiccato patterning that produce not only initial tones, but also corresponding echoes. Lyrical and romantic on one hand, her harsh string sweeping also expands with snaps, taps and banjo-like frails. Sometimes she vocalizes as she plays, adding another dimension to the performance.

Commanding on her own, she inserts herself into groups without fissure. In a sextet on the companion CD featuring Israeli reedists, her triple-stopped advances lock in with the horns’ contrapuntal key-slipping and trill spraying. Never upsetting balanced reed bites, her sul tasto expansions amplify the crunching dynamics of pianist Daniel Sarid, while her wood-slapping pulse operates in tandem with the flams and bounces of drummer Haggai Fershtman. In trio interaction with bassist JC Jones and saxophonist Stephen Horenstein, she lets the other bassist time-keep with col legno stops, while she string-snaps and pumps. Her bel canto warbling not only adds another texture, but also joins in double counterpoint with the saxophonist’s rubato tonguing.

More reductive, Joëlle Léandre & William Parker Live at Dunois (Leo CD LR 535 captures a bravura showcase for Léandre and Manhattan’s William Parker, whose jazz-honed techniques are as celebrated as hers. Performance roles are defined: Parker thumps, walks and slaps in pedal point, while Léandre uses her bow to swirl rococo tinctures that encompass agitated peaks and valleys of flying spiccato. This isn’t a brawl but an expression of mutual respect. At points both combine strokes as polyphonic textures rappel every which way. Reaching an intermezzo of floating concussion and friction, the two fuse as if they were playing an eight-stringed bas. Unbroken portamento runs echoing in double counterpoint, although each maintains individual identity.

As with the Stone Quartet in Guelph, Léandre has an affinity for brass and piano players. Joëlle Léandre-George Lewis Transatlantic Visions (RogueArt ROG-0020 and Joëlle Léandre & Quentin Sirjacq Out of Nowhere (Ambiance MagnétiqueAM184 confirm this. The first is a meeting between the bassist and American trombonist Lewis, with whom she has worked for decades. Sirjacq is a French pianist she has just begun to partner. Familiarity and novelty produce equivalently outstanding CDs.

Chamber music-like in its initial delicacy, her duet with the pianist becomes intense as vibrating bass harmonies encourage Sirjacq to toughen his output. Soon her jagged arpeggios and glissandi are met by metronomic pounding, key fanning and internal string plucking from the pianist. Anything but equal temperament, stopped soundboard buzzes on “Ruin” are joined by church-bell like gongs from Sirjacq, as Léandre doubles her sul ponticello bowing, while growling nonsense syllables. In the penultimate “Awakening” her quivering bowing is bisected by a flurry of kinetic key patterns. Finally “Closing” mates her flamenco-like rubs with his construction of an edifice of expansive arpeggios and cascading chording; reintroducing the theme for musical closure.

In contrast to the tentative exposition on Out of Nowhere, Léandre and Lewis are fully attuned from the get-go and stay that way. Announcing herself with a guttural snarl, at points she vocalizes alongside her string strokes. In addition to sweeping glissandi and staccato string-scouring, Léandre yowls as Lewis’ lows gutbucket tones. In response to her sul tasto runs, the trombonist exposes rotund tones and rubato yelps. If he showcases subterranean grace notes from inside his horn, she smacks the strings col legno. Sounding as if they could stretch their instruments tessitura indefinitely, they reach a climax at the half-way point as glottal stops from Lewis are complemented by pumped arpeggios and contrapuntal strumming from Léandre.

But perhaps the most palpable testimony to Léandre’s sonic versatility is the tracks she shares with oud player/vocalist Sameer Makhoul on Live in Israel. Despite the oud’s five pairs of strings compared to her four, she manages to advance buzzing timbres that perfectly match his breakneck finger-picking. Not only that, but her rhythmic breaths and free-form chanting complement his vocalized glossolalia so that the two sound as if they’re performing a Middle Eastern operetta.

-- For Whole Note Vol. 15 #1

September 4, 2009

Joëlle Léandre & William Parker

Live at Dunois
Leo CD LR 535

Joëlle Léandre-George Lewis

Transatlantic Visions

RogueArt ROG-0020

Joëlle Léandre

Live in Israel

Kadima KCR 17

Joëlle Léandre & Quentin SirJacq

Out of Nowhere

Ambiance MagnétiqueAM184

Extended Play: Joëlle Léandre

By Ken Waxman

A masterful and distinctive soloist, French bassist Joëlle Léandre is versatile in any musical situation. These impressive CDs showcase her improvisational skills, while elsewhere the conservatory-trained Parisian is as comfortable with notated music, often performing studies written for her by composers such as John Cage and Giancinto Scelsi.

One of the two CDs that make up Joëlle Léandre Live in Israel (Kadima KCR 17 verifies her solo skill. This showcase includes exposition, theme variations and finale, without being conventionally programmatic. Equally strident and soothing, her string strokes include thick rhythmic scrubs and spiccato patterning that produce not only initial tones, but also corresponding echoes. Lyrical and romantic on one hand, her harsh string sweeping also expands with snaps, taps and banjo-like frails. Sometimes she vocalizes as she plays, adding another dimension to the performance.

Commanding on her own, she inserts herself into groups without fissure. In a sextet on the companion CD featuring Israeli reedists, her triple-stopped advances lock in with the horns’ contrapuntal key-slipping and trill spraying. Never upsetting balanced reed bites, her sul tasto expansions amplify the crunching dynamics of pianist Daniel Sarid, while her wood-slapping pulse operates in tandem with the flams and bounces of drummer Haggai Fershtman. In trio interaction with bassist JC Jones and saxophonist Stephen Horenstein, she lets the other bassist time-keep with col legno stops, while she string-snaps and pumps. Her bel canto warbling not only adds another texture, but also joins in double counterpoint with the saxophonist’s rubato tonguing.

More reductive, Joëlle Léandre & William Parker Live at Dunois (Leo CD LR 535 captures a bravura showcase for Léandre and Manhattan’s William Parker, whose jazz-honed techniques are as celebrated as hers. Performance roles are defined: Parker thumps, walks and slaps in pedal point, while Léandre uses her bow to swirl rococo tinctures that encompass agitated peaks and valleys of flying spiccato. This isn’t a brawl but an expression of mutual respect. At points both combine strokes as polyphonic textures rappel every which way. Reaching an intermezzo of floating concussion and friction, the two fuse as if they were playing an eight-stringed bas. Unbroken portamento runs echoing in double counterpoint, although each maintains individual identity.

As with the Stone Quartet in Guelph, Léandre has an affinity for brass and piano players. Joëlle Léandre-George Lewis Transatlantic Visions (RogueArt ROG-0020 and Joëlle Léandre & Quentin Sirjacq Out of Nowhere (Ambiance MagnétiqueAM184 confirm this. The first is a meeting between the bassist and American trombonist Lewis, with whom she has worked for decades. Sirjacq is a French pianist she has just begun to partner. Familiarity and novelty produce equivalently outstanding CDs.

Chamber music-like in its initial delicacy, her duet with the pianist becomes intense as vibrating bass harmonies encourage Sirjacq to toughen his output. Soon her jagged arpeggios and glissandi are met by metronomic pounding, key fanning and internal string plucking from the pianist. Anything but equal temperament, stopped soundboard buzzes on “Ruin” are joined by church-bell like gongs from Sirjacq, as Léandre doubles her sul ponticello bowing, while growling nonsense syllables. In the penultimate “Awakening” her quivering bowing is bisected by a flurry of kinetic key patterns. Finally “Closing” mates her flamenco-like rubs with his construction of an edifice of expansive arpeggios and cascading chording; reintroducing the theme for musical closure.

In contrast to the tentative exposition on Out of Nowhere, Léandre and Lewis are fully attuned from the get-go and stay that way. Announcing herself with a guttural snarl, at points she vocalizes alongside her string strokes. In addition to sweeping glissandi and staccato string-scouring, Léandre yowls as Lewis’ lows gutbucket tones. In response to her sul tasto runs, the trombonist exposes rotund tones and rubato yelps. If he showcases subterranean grace notes from inside his horn, she smacks the strings col legno. Sounding as if they could stretch their instruments tessitura indefinitely, they reach a climax at the half-way point as glottal stops from Lewis are complemented by pumped arpeggios and contrapuntal strumming from Léandre.

But perhaps the most palpable testimony to Léandre’s sonic versatility is the tracks she shares with oud player/vocalist Sameer Makhoul on Live in Israel. Despite the oud’s five pairs of strings compared to her four, she manages to advance buzzing timbres that perfectly match his breakneck finger-picking. Not only that, but her rhythmic breaths and free-form chanting complement his vocalized glossolalia so that the two sound as if they’re performing a Middle Eastern operetta.

-- For Whole Note Vol. 15 #1

September 4, 2009

Ariel Shibolet and Between the Strings

Live at the Tel Aviv Museum
Kadima KCR 013

Sebastian Hilken/Anat Cohavi/Klaus Janek

No. 1

Sternschuss No. 1

No longer a novelty, the idea of a saxophonist improvising along with string players is now almost commonplace. But the key to these collaborations is that rather than playing alongside one another – as conventional Bird-and-Strings-like session often do – the best of these dates succinctly combine both elements.

That’s the story behind No. 1 and Live at the Tel Aviv Museum, although both approach this collaboration in a different way. The first CD is a 10-part suite created by one of the working groups of Israeli-born, Berlin-based soprano saxophonist and bass clarinetist Anat Cohavi. Her partners are Sebastian Hilken, playing cello and modified electronics, and bassist Klaus Janek, who in the past has recorded two solo CDs interpreting the Caspar folk tale.

Although featuring another Israeli saxophonist, Live is divided into three distinct programs. Soprano saxophonist Ariel Shibolet, who has play with among others American bassist Damon Smith and German trumpeter Birgit Ulher, as well as a clutch of advanced Israeli players, has the first track to himself. The second features on bass and electronics, JC Jones a well-travelled musician who has recorded with everyone from American saxophonist Ned Rothenberg to Israel reedist Albert Berger – incidentally one of Cohavi’s teachers – as well as Daniel Hoffman on violin and Nori Jacoby on viola. The final and most illustrative track unites all four musicians.

Earlier on, Shibolet has probed the limits of his instrument, sluicing from altissimo shills to almost inaudible mouth breaths. Among the extended interludes of circular breathing are those where the sounds appear as inevitable as the movements of the tide. Nearly frenzied at points, with Shibolet’s playing involving bubbling reflux and waves of continuous timbres, he often creates multiphonics of different shades and lengths. Later he modulates to singular breaths that seem wrenched from the innards of the horn, tops them with split tones that expose underlying static as well as more melodic notes, and finally begins humming along with the two previous tones.

On its own, the Between the String Trio exhibits admirable unison work that flits among spiccato sprints, sul tasto slurs, staccato scrapes and slack sonics, with Jones’ heavy slaps and pops directing curved and plucks from the smaller strings as he carves out a bottom base.

Together the four produce an atmospheric intermezzo which mixes Shibolet’s mouthpiece squeaks, reed bites and polyphonic flurries with massed string shuffle-bowing and tremolo plops. As Hoffman and Jacoby again pitch-slide past staccato lines and harsh, ricocheting stops, Jones similarly slaps his bass to keep individual parts from breaking off on their own. Detaching the nodes still further the saxophonist yelps timbral bites, honks moistly and trumpets sharp circular trills. As Jones anchors the performance with belly and ribs smacks on his bass, the reedist’s ultimate ear-splitting whistle is cleverly mated to the other strings’ tremolo vibrations.

More a concordance than the series of sound episodes which characterized the other CD, Cohavi, Hilken and Janek appear more committed to group statements. Although one instrument fewer is in the mix, a greater variety of timbres are available since not only does the cellist contribute understated electronic lines, but Cohavi frequently shifts between soprano saxophone and bass clarinet.

With penetrating altissimo available from the smaller horn and soothing chalumeau from the larger woodwind, she can offer more harmonic impetus when confronting the string players’ staccato pumps and stops. Additionally the woody, low-pitched properties of the bass and the cello’s warm, legato bowing are also put to good use.

Other aural colors appear as well. On “part e”, for instance the cello’s stropped, atonal sweeps line up alongside reverberations from the bass. These gradually mutate from thick, strangle-string echoes to resonating ngoni-like snaps, as the reedist lows colored reed bites.

Providing more of a chromatic plan on “part c,” Cohavi snorts, snarls and tongue stops, honks and exhibits glissandi on bass clarinet, as the cellist scratches sul ponticello lines – that might be striated due to electronics – and Janek rhythmically thumps in broken octaves. Finally on “part j”, breaking away from close mooring of bass plucks plus woody taps from Janek, Cohavi sounds a discursive, winnowing bark which perfectly matches the spiccato bowing emanating from Hilken’s instrument.

With strings now firmly integrated into the elaboration of improvised music, both these bands suggest different paths along which to travel to regard the interface.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: No. 1: 1. part a 2. part b 3. part c 4. part d 5 part e 6. part f 7. part g 8. part h 9. part i 10. part j

Personnel: No. 1: Anat Cohavi (soprano saxophone and bass clarinet); Sebastian Hilken (cello and electronics) and Klaus Janek (bass)

Track Listing: Live: 1. Part 1* 2. Part 2+ 3. Part 3*+

Personnel: Live: Ariel Shibolet (soprano saxophone)* and Daniel Hoffman (violin); Nori Jacoby (viola) and JC Jones (bass and live electronics)+

December 28, 2008

Anat Cohavi/Sebastian Hilken/Klaus Janek

No. 1
Sternschuss No. 1

Ariel Shibolet and Between the Strings

Live at the Tel Aviv Museum

Kadima KCR 013

No longer a novelty, the idea of a saxophonist improvising along with string players is now almost commonplace. But the key to these collaborations is that rather than playing alongside one another – as conventional Bird-and-Strings-like session often do – the best of these dates succinctly combine both elements.

That’s the story behind No. 1 and Live at the Tel Aviv Museum, although both approach this collaboration in a different way. The first CD is a 10-part suite created by one of the working groups of Israeli-born, Berlin-based soprano saxophonist and bass clarinetist Anat Cohavi. Her partners are Sebastian Hilken, playing cello and modified electronics, and bassist Klaus Janek, who in the past has recorded two solo CDs interpreting the Caspar folk tale.

Although featuring another Israeli saxophonist, Live is divided into three distinct programs. Soprano saxophonist Ariel Shibolet, who has play with among others American bassist Damon Smith and German trumpeter Birgit Ulher, as well as a clutch of advanced Israeli players, has the first track to himself. The second features on bass and electronics, JC Jones a well-travelled musician who has recorded with everyone from American saxophonist Ned Rothenberg to Israel reedist Albert Berger – incidentally one of Cohavi’s teachers – as well as Daniel Hoffman on violin and Nori Jacoby on viola. The final and most illustrative track unites all four musicians.

Earlier on, Shibolet has probed the limits of his instrument, sluicing from altissimo shills to almost inaudible mouth breaths. Among the extended interludes of circular breathing are those where the sounds appear as inevitable as the movements of the tide. Nearly frenzied at points, with Shibolet’s playing involving bubbling reflux and waves of continuous timbres, he often creates multiphonics of different shades and lengths. Later he modulates to singular breaths that seem wrenched from the innards of the horn, tops them with split tones that expose underlying static as well as more melodic notes, and finally begins humming along with the two previous tones.

On its own, the Between the String Trio exhibits admirable unison work that flits among spiccato sprints, sul tasto slurs, staccato scrapes and slack sonics, with Jones’ heavy slaps and pops directing curved and plucks from the smaller strings as he carves out a bottom base.

Together the four produce an atmospheric intermezzo which mixes Shibolet’s mouthpiece squeaks, reed bites and polyphonic flurries with massed string shuffle-bowing and tremolo plops. As Hoffman and Jacoby again pitch-slide past staccato lines and harsh, ricocheting stops, Jones similarly slaps his bass to keep individual parts from breaking off on their own. Detaching the nodes still further the saxophonist yelps timbral bites, honks moistly and trumpets sharp circular trills. As Jones anchors the performance with belly and ribs smacks on his bass, the reedist’s ultimate ear-splitting whistle is cleverly mated to the other strings’ tremolo vibrations.

More a concordance than the series of sound episodes which characterized the other CD, Cohavi, Hilken and Janek appear more committed to group statements. Although one instrument fewer is in the mix, a greater variety of timbres are available since not only does the cellist contribute understated electronic lines, but Cohavi frequently shifts between soprano saxophone and bass clarinet.

With penetrating altissimo available from the smaller horn and soothing chalumeau from the larger woodwind, she can offer more harmonic impetus when confronting the string players’ staccato pumps and stops. Additionally the woody, low-pitched properties of the bass and the cello’s warm, legato bowing are also put to good use.

Other aural colors appear as well. On “part e”, for instance the cello’s stropped, atonal sweeps line up alongside reverberations from the bass. These gradually mutate from thick, strangle-string echoes to resonating ngoni-like snaps, as the reedist lows colored reed bites.

Providing more of a chromatic plan on “part c,” Cohavi snorts, snarls and tongue stops, honks and exhibits glissandi on bass clarinet, as the cellist scratches sul ponticello lines – that might be striated due to electronics – and Janek rhythmically thumps in broken octaves. Finally on “part j”, breaking away from close mooring of bass plucks plus woody taps from Janek, Cohavi sounds a discursive, winnowing bark which perfectly matches the spiccato bowing emanating from Hilken’s instrument.

With strings now firmly integrated into the elaboration of improvised music, both these bands suggest different paths along which to travel to regard the interface.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: No. 1: 1. part a 2. part b 3. part c 4. part d 5 part e 6. part f 7. part g 8. part h 9. part i 10. part j

Personnel: No. 1: Anat Cohavi (soprano saxophone and bass clarinet); Sebastian Hilken (cello and electronics) and Klaus Janek (bass)

Track Listing: Live: 1. Part 1* 2. Part 2+ 3. Part 3*+

Personnel: Live: Ariel Shibolet (soprano saxophone)* and Daniel Hoffman (violin); Nori Jacoby (viola) and JC Jones (bass and live electronics)+

December 28, 2008

Various

White Nights Festival Tel Aviv 2006
Kadima Collective KCR 11

Shibolet/Josephson/Baker/Looney/Smith

Untitled (1959)

Kadima Collective KCR 09

Slava Ganelin-Vladimir Volkov

Ne Slyshno

Auris Media Aum 012

Slava Ganelin-Neil Rothenberg

Falling Into Place

Auris Media Aum 007

Secure in its position as the one true democracy in the Middle East, cosmopolitan elements in Israel have long encouraged the growth of an indigenous jazz scene. Only in the past decade-and-a-half however, have improvisers on the Israeli scene elicited more than local interest. At the same time, associations between many Israelis and musicians in other countries has meant that a Diaspora of improvisers from the Jewish state has set up shop – and garnered fulsome praise – in jazz capitals such as New York.

As the top-flight music on these CDs demonstrates, not every Israeli improviser has emigrated. However it’s also instructive to note that many of the most notable sounds here result from collaborations between Israeli players and outsiders. Plus with the still-young country actively encouraging Jewish immigration, some of Israel’s more advanced players have non-Israeli origins. To take three at random, baritone saxophonist Steve Horenstein is originally an American; bassist JC Jones comes from France; and keyboardist Slava Ganelin’s Ganelin Trio was probably the most famous avant-garde ensemble in the Cold War era Soviet Block, before the Lithuanian Ganelin immigrated to Israel.

Still an internationalist, Ne Slyshno finds the veteran Ganelin hooked up with a former Russian, bassist Vladimir Volkov, whose past credits include work with the Moscow Composers Orchestra and Moscow Art Trio. Conversant with many styles of music, Volkov’s tough plucking and string-stopping resemble that of mainstreamers like Red Mitchell, while his sul ponticello slides and high frequency tremolo patterns are stylistically avant-garde. Someone who also performs traditional music on the viola de gamba, Volkov’s facility includes the ability to add Roma-like flying staccato runs to his solos.

Completed by short, quieter postludes, which allow Ganelin’s grand piano cadenzas to suggest both Artur Rubinstein-like romantic coloration and dynamics and the key-spanking and plinking that relate to Bud Powell’s bop advances, the improvisations at Ne Slyshn’s centre are both extensive and descriptive.

Instructively, no more than one-quarter of the second track passes before the pianist makes clear that despite his liking for contrasting dynamics à la Cecil Taylor, the swaggering echoes he uses distinctively distance him from the American’s concept. Furthermore among the gouts of notes exposed, his playing is still sensitive enough to make room for Volkov’s staccato squeaks on the higher-pitched strings. While Ganelin’s styling may be modern enough to include internal string scraping, manic boogie-woogie-styling and rough chiming notes appear as well. Then by the tune’s climax his Slavic balladic side asserts itself again.

When the two instruments couple on the third track, the bassist’s subterranean plucks are given added impetus by the pianist’s rolling chords patterns. In fact, Volkov’s double-stopping percussiveness when added to Ganelin’s cross-handed plinking and cymbal slaps – the pianist also plays percussion – almost transforms the two musicians into a bop trio. Just as quickly bird-screeching rappelling on the bull fiddle’s strings splinter the piano’s Europeanized melodies, leaving more space for bell-ringing and the squeaks of plastic toys. Ramping up his keys with foot pedal pressure to full Russian classical mode, Ganelin’s widely splayed forward motion is only moderated by Volkov’s modulated string slapping.

A year previously Ganelin met American multi-reedist Ned Rothenberg for a live concert in Jaffa. It foreshadowed some of his simpatico work with Volkov, but elsewhere seems more distant than any land-sharing proposal from either the Palestinian or Israeli side. Three of the first four numbers expose Rothenberg’s skill on clarinet, bass clarinet and alto saxophone. The fourth is a more-than-34-minute solo tour-de-force from Ganelin called “A Place With The Space”. It’s so self-contained, that “A Place With The Space” could be a Territories settler’s view of the rest of the country.

Throughout, Ganelin seem intent on not only on creating a fantasia of organic piano patterns, but also boost his admittedly rudimentary percussion skills. Later on, he confirm that his synthesizer is capable of replicating any timbre from that of the lumbering bassoon in Peter and the Wolf to thundering E. Power Biggs-like organ stops. Again creating a détente between Romantic-styled cadences and bebop runs on the piano, Ganelin’s pitch-sliding tones and soundboard vibrations are more descriptive than the thumping percussion or the swirling, blurred patterns from the synth.

For his part, Rothenberg, who has held his own in duets with British saxophone master Evan Parker among others, defines versatility. “The Foot In It” exhibits his tongue-slapping chalumeau register and widely spaced multiphonics on bass clarinet. “A Blue Dance” for clarinet shows how harsh trills, legato chirps and flutter tonguing can be built up into rhythmic refractions of continuous breathing with verbalized hocketing and expressive high pitches. Introducing the properties of his alto saxophone’s metal as well as its reed, “Wood In The Metal” is cumulative program of high intensity and extended pitches that by exposing every sibilant tone produce a sound midway between bagpipe chanter and a pan flute.

Somewhat anti-climatic, the set of short duets that follow merely gilds the two sonic lilies that are exhibited singly. More like jousts than meetings, the feeling persists that each player dons his technical armor as a way to push the other to react. Thus at one point flowery and extended European piano echoes lead to mellow bass clarinet runs, snorts and gentling coloration, with tongue slaps and arpeggios stretching to be more connective. Elsewhere, marimba-like internal piano string echoes underscore single, twittering shakuhachi lines.

A similar congruence, but not-quite connection, exists in the extended free improvisation from Ganelin, drummer Arkady Gotesman and Irish guitarist Mark O’Leary on White Nights Festival. Tel Aviv’s 12-hour musical marathon., the live performances mix’n’match Israelis and visitors in ad-hoc groups. With Gotesman laying down a low rumble and the pianist comping, the guitarist appears eager to break things up by varying what initially seems to be Tal Farlow-like picking with long-lined frails and rock-styled vamps. Meeting him with key patting and pounding plus disassociated runs, Genelin’s post-Energy music and O’Leary post-fusion sounds don’t really gel.

More sympathetic is the drummer’s low-key contribution to “German Poem”, which also features the walking bass of Shmil Frankel, off-centre tolling piano notes from Olga Magieres plus Harold Rubin’s recitation and rustic tongue slapping and twittering clarinet work. The instrumental section trumps the words however.

However on “Ship of Fools”, an interactive trio of saxophonist Horenstein, bassist Jones and Loic Kessous on computer sound processing, makes better use of bull fiddle and reed timbres. Content to process and spit back the purely instrumental tones, the computer only betrays its presence with the odd shuddering pulse. Overall, the piece is an essay in cooperation. Working up to high intensity, Jones ratchets his bow across the strings producing sul ponticello lines, rough strums and spiccato ricocheting. Meanwhile Horenstein snorts split tones from the baritone’s highest register, steady, low-pitched honks and tongue flutters. Eventually reached is an accord of tremolo tones that mulch portions of computer warbles, saxophone timbres and bass string thumps.

Other saxophonist on hand during White Nights include Danish tenor saxophonist John Tchicai and local Ariel Shibolet. Despite his long history in outside music, Tchicai’s trio with John Bostock on piano and Noam David on drums seems to meander towards adagio ballad territory except for the occasional off-kilter reed squeak. Similarly, Shibolet’s two brief tracks on soprano saxophone with Yoram Lachish’ electronics expose circular breathing and electronic shrilling, but never really gather momentum.

A more impressive showcase for Shibolet is Untitled (1959). Recorded around the same time as White Nights but in Oakland, Calif. it matches the soprano saxophonist with four of his Bay area contemporaries: trombonist Jen Baker, pianist Scott R. Loney – who also recorded, mixed and mastered the CD – bassist Damon Smith and vocalist Aurora Josephson.

All track titles are taken from paintings by Mark Rothko, with the sfumato coloration produced by all quintet members. For instance, “White, Yellow, Red on Yellow” gives Shibolet space for altissimo peeps and irregular vibrations as Baker’s ‘bone notes sluice downwards, Loney twangs and stops the piano’s internal strings and Smith slides acro tones back-and-forth. Eventually Josephson’s choked bel canto tones make common cause with the saxophonist’s circular breathing.

Braying slurs from Baker are the initial defining factor of the title track, soon joined by the saxophonist’s rolling tongue slaps. Double and triple tonguing to a multiphonic display, the trombonist eventually lets loosen with elongated and accumulated trills and tones, almost undifferentiated from Shibolet’s reed bites. Pitter-pattering keyboard lines and Smith’s thick slaps put the solos in context.

Other improvisations encompass air sax runs, keyboard arpeggios and vocal onomatopoeia from Josephson, though “Blue Cloud”, the almost 7½-minute longest track touches on New music. Tough bow slices and near-the-pegs plucks from Smith, crash-and-bang chording from Looney meet undulating wah-wah notes from Baker and colored air breaths and thick, irregular vibrato jumps from the saxophonist. Marshalling her collection of near-inaudible croaks and duck-like growls, Josephson’s quivering throat textures match extended trombone plunger tones and trilling grace notes from Shibolet.

Sanctions and settlements on the West Bank to the contrary, cooperation creates more evolution – musical and otherwise – than isolation. Each of these CDs demonstrates that, in a completely musical way, in one fashion or another.

-- Ken Waxman

.

Track Listing: White: 1. Improv 1 2. The Holy Coordinator 3. German Poem 4. Untitled 1 5. Ship of Fools 6. Untitled 2 7. Free Improv 8. Improv 1 9. Anima 10. Summit for Albert Ayler

Personnel: White: 1. & 8 Ariel Shibolet (soprano saxophone) and Yoram Lachish (electronics) 2. John Tchicai (tenor saxophone); John Bostock (piano) and Noam David (drums) 3. Harold Rubin (clarinet and voice); Olga Magieres (piano); Shmil Frankel (bass) and Arkady Gotesman (drums) 4. & 6. Wlodzimierz Kiniorski(tenor saxophone and flute); Rafal Mazur (bass) and Markek Choloniewski (electronics) 5. Steve Horenstein (baritone saxophone); JC Jones (bass) and Loic Kessous (computer sound processing) 7. Slava Ganelin (piano and synthesizer); Mark O’Leary (guitar) and Akady Gotesman (drums) 9. Spheres Duo: Arnon Zimra (piano) and Zvi Joffe (vibraphone and percussion) 10. John Tchicai and Albert Berger (tenor saxophones); Steve Horenstein (baritone saxophone) and Noam David (drums)

Track Listing: One: One Slyshno 1. (00:26) 2. (22:10) 3. (26:21) 4. (12:35) 5. (06:26)

Personnel: One: Slava Ganelin (piano and percussion) and Vladimir Volkov (bass)

Track Listing: Untitled: 1. Number 12 2. Homage to Matisse 3. Number 61 (Brown, Blue, Brown on Blue) [t,p,s] 4. Yellow, Orange, Red on Orange [t,p,s] 5. White, Yellow, Red on Yellow 6. Light, Earth and Blue 7. Ochre and Red on Red [t,p,b] 8. White Band (Number 27) [v.t] 9. Three Reds [v,s] 10. Blue Cloud 11. White Cloud 12. Four Reds [t,b,s] 13. Black, Ochre, Red and Red [t,b,s] 14. Red, Gray, White on Yellow 15. Red, Black, Orange, Yellow on Yellow 16. Untitled (1959)

Personnel: Untitled: Jen Baker (trombone); Ariel Shibolet (soprano saxophone); Scott R. Loney (piano); Damon Smith (bass) and Aurora Josephson (voice)

Track Listing: Falling: 1. The Foot In It 2. The Place With The Space 3. A Blue Dance 4. Wood In The Metal 5. First Conversation 6. Steps In Time 7. Luminous Staircase 8. Glassland 9. Encore

Personnel: Falling: Ned Rothenberg (alto saxophone, clarinet, bass clarinet and shakuhachi) and Slava Ganelin (piano, synthesizer and percussion)

March 20, 2008

Shibolet/Josephson/Baker/Looney/Smith

Untitled (1959)
Kadima Collective KCR 09

Slava Ganelin-Vladimir Volkov

Ne Slyshno

Auris Media Aum 012

Slava Ganelin-Neil Rothenberg

Falling Into Place

Auris Media Aum 007

Various

White Nights Festival Tel Aviv 2006

Kadima Collective KCR 11

Secure in its position as the one true democracy in the Middle East, cosmopolitan elements in Israel have long encouraged the growth of an indigenous jazz scene. Only in the past decade-and-a-half however, have improvisers on the Israeli scene elicited more than local interest. At the same time, associations between many Israelis and musicians in other countries has meant that a Diaspora of improvisers from the Jewish state has set up shop – and garnered fulsome praise – in jazz capitals such as New York.

As the top-flight music on these CDs demonstrates, not every Israeli improviser has emigrated. However it’s also instructive to note that many of the most notable sounds here result from collaborations between Israeli players and outsiders. Plus with the still-young country actively encouraging Jewish immigration, some of Israel’s more advanced players have non-Israeli origins. To take three at random, baritone saxophonist Steve Horenstein is originally an American; bassist JC Jones comes from France; and keyboardist Slava Ganelin’s Ganelin Trio was probably the most famous avant-garde ensemble in the Cold War era Soviet Block, before the Lithuanian Ganelin immigrated to Israel.

Still an internationalist, Ne Slyshno finds the veteran Ganelin hooked up with a former Russian, bassist Vladimir Volkov, whose past credits include work with the Moscow Composers Orchestra and Moscow Art Trio. Conversant with many styles of music, Volkov’s tough plucking and string-stopping resemble that of mainstreamers like Red Mitchell, while his sul ponticello slides and high frequency tremolo patterns are stylistically avant-garde. Someone who also performs traditional music on the viola de gamba, Volkov’s facility includes the ability to add Roma-like flying staccato runs to his solos.

Completed by short, quieter postludes, which allow Ganelin’s grand piano cadenzas to suggest both Artur Rubinstein-like romantic coloration and dynamics and the key-spanking and plinking that relate to Bud Powell’s bop advances, the improvisations at Ne Slyshn’s centre are both extensive and descriptive.

Instructively, no more than one-quarter of the second track passes before the pianist makes clear that despite his liking for contrasting dynamics à la Cecil Taylor, the swaggering echoes he uses distinctively distance him from the American’s concept. Furthermore among the gouts of notes exposed, his playing is still sensitive enough to make room for Volkov’s staccato squeaks on the higher-pitched strings. While Ganelin’s styling may be modern enough to include internal string scraping, manic boogie-woogie-styling and rough chiming notes appear as well. Then by the tune’s climax his Slavic balladic side asserts itself again.

When the two instruments couple on the third track, the bassist’s subterranean plucks are given added impetus by the pianist’s rolling chords patterns. In fact, Volkov’s double-stopping percussiveness when added to Ganelin’s cross-handed plinking and cymbal slaps – the pianist also plays percussion – almost transforms the two musicians into a bop trio. Just as quickly bird-screeching rappelling on the bull fiddle’s strings splinter the piano’s Europeanized melodies, leaving more space for bell-ringing and the squeaks of plastic toys. Ramping up his keys with foot pedal pressure to full Russian classical mode, Ganelin’s widely splayed forward motion is only moderated by Volkov’s modulated string slapping.

A year previously Ganelin met American multi-reedist Ned Rothenberg for a live concert in Jaffa. It foreshadowed some of his simpatico work with Volkov, but elsewhere seems more distant than any land-sharing proposal from either the Palestinian or Israeli side. Three of the first four numbers expose Rothenberg’s skill on clarinet, bass clarinet and alto saxophone. The fourth is a more-than-34-minute solo tour-de-force from Ganelin called “A Place With The Space”. It’s so self-contained, that “A Place With The Space” could be a Territories settler’s view of the rest of the country.

Throughout, Ganelin seem intent on not only on creating a fantasia of organic piano patterns, but also boost his admittedly rudimentary percussion skills. Later on, he confirm that his synthesizer is capable of replicating any timbre from that of the lumbering bassoon in Peter and the Wolf to thundering E. Power Biggs-like organ stops. Again creating a détente between Romantic-styled cadences and bebop runs on the piano, Ganelin’s pitch-sliding tones and soundboard vibrations are more descriptive than the thumping percussion or the swirling, blurred patterns from the synth.

For his part, Rothenberg, who has held his own in duets with British saxophone master Evan Parker among others, defines versatility. “The Foot In It” exhibits his tongue-slapping chalumeau register and widely spaced multiphonics on bass clarinet. “A Blue Dance” for clarinet shows how harsh trills, legato chirps and flutter tonguing can be built up into rhythmic refractions of continuous breathing with verbalized hocketing and expressive high pitches. Introducing the properties of his alto saxophone’s metal as well as its reed, “Wood In The Metal” is cumulative program of high intensity and extended pitches that by exposing every sibilant tone produce a sound midway between bagpipe chanter and a pan flute.

Somewhat anti-climatic, the set of short duets that follow merely gilds the two sonic lilies that are exhibited singly. More like jousts than meetings, the feeling persists that each player dons his technical armor as a way to push the other to react. Thus at one point flowery and extended European piano echoes lead to mellow bass clarinet runs, snorts and gentling coloration, with tongue slaps and arpeggios stretching to be more connective. Elsewhere, marimba-like internal piano string echoes underscore single, twittering shakuhachi lines.

A similar congruence, but not-quite connection, exists in the extended free improvisation from Ganelin, drummer Arkady Gotesman and Irish guitarist Mark O’Leary on White Nights Festival. Tel Aviv’s 12-hour musical marathon., the live performances mix’n’match Israelis and visitors in ad-hoc groups. With Gotesman laying down a low rumble and the pianist comping, the guitarist appears eager to break things up by varying what initially seems to be Tal Farlow-like picking with long-lined frails and rock-styled vamps. Meeting him with key patting and pounding plus disassociated runs, Genelin’s post-Energy music and O’Leary post-fusion sounds don’t really gel.

More sympathetic is the drummer’s low-key contribution to “German Poem”, which also features the walking bass of Shmil Frankel, off-centre tolling piano notes from Olga Magieres plus Harold Rubin’s recitation and rustic tongue slapping and twittering clarinet work. The instrumental section trumps the words however.

However on “Ship of Fools”, an interactive trio of saxophonist Horenstein, bassist Jones and Loic Kessous on computer sound processing, makes better use of bull fiddle and reed timbres. Content to process and spit back the purely instrumental tones, the computer only betrays its presence with the odd shuddering pulse. Overall, the piece is an essay in cooperation. Working up to high intensity, Jones ratchets his bow across the strings producing sul ponticello lines, rough strums and spiccato ricocheting. Meanwhile Horenstein snorts split tones from the baritone’s highest register, steady, low-pitched honks and tongue flutters. Eventually reached is an accord of tremolo tones that mulch portions of computer warbles, saxophone timbres and bass string thumps.

Other saxophonist on hand during White Nights include Danish tenor saxophonist John Tchicai and local Ariel Shibolet. Despite his long history in outside music, Tchicai’s trio with John Bostock on piano and Noam David on drums seems to meander towards adagio ballad territory except for the occasional off-kilter reed squeak. Similarly, Shibolet’s two brief tracks on soprano saxophone with Yoram Lachish’ electronics expose circular breathing and electronic shrilling, but never really gather momentum.

A more impressive showcase for Shibolet is Untitled (1959). Recorded around the same time as White Nights but in Oakland, Calif. it matches the soprano saxophonist with four of his Bay area contemporaries: trombonist Jen Baker, pianist Scott R. Loney – who also recorded, mixed and mastered the CD – bassist Damon Smith and vocalist Aurora Josephson.

All track titles are taken from paintings by Mark Rothko, with the sfumato coloration produced by all quintet members. For instance, “White, Yellow, Red on Yellow” gives Shibolet space for altissimo peeps and irregular vibrations as Baker’s ‘bone notes sluice downwards, Loney twangs and stops the piano’s internal strings and Smith slides acro tones back-and-forth. Eventually Josephson’s choked bel canto tones make common cause with the saxophonist’s circular breathing.

Braying slurs from Baker are the initial defining factor of the title track, soon joined by the saxophonist’s rolling tongue slaps. Double and triple tonguing to a multiphonic display, the trombonist eventually lets loosen with elongated and accumulated trills and tones, almost undifferentiated from Shibolet’s reed bites. Pitter-pattering keyboard lines and Smith’s thick slaps put the solos in context.

Other improvisations encompass air sax runs, keyboard arpeggios and vocal onomatopoeia from Josephson, though “Blue Cloud”, the almost 7½-minute longest track touches on New music. Tough bow slices and near-the-pegs plucks from Smith, crash-and-bang chording from Looney meet undulating wah-wah notes from Baker and colored air breaths and thick, irregular vibrato jumps from the saxophonist. Marshalling her collection of near-inaudible croaks and duck-like growls, Josephson’s quivering throat textures match extended trombone plunger tones and trilling grace notes from Shibolet.

Sanctions and settlements on the West Bank to the contrary, cooperation creates more evolution – musical and otherwise – than isolation. Each of these CDs demonstrates that, in a completely musical way, in one fashion or another.

-- Ken Waxman

.

Track Listing: White: 1. Improv 1 2. The Holy Coordinator 3. German Poem 4. Untitled 1 5. Ship of Fools 6. Untitled 2 7. Free Improv 8. Improv 1 9. Anima 10. Summit for Albert Ayler

Personnel: White: 1. & 8 Ariel Shibolet (soprano saxophone) and Yoram Lachish (electronics) 2. John Tchicai (tenor saxophone); John Bostock (piano) and Noam David (drums) 3. Harold Rubin (clarinet and voice); Olga Magieres (piano); Shmil Frankel (bass) and Arkady Gotesman (drums) 4. & 6.Wlodzimierz Kiniorski(tenor saxophone and flute); Rafal Mazur (bass) and Markek Choloniewski (electronics) 5. Steve Horenstein (baritone saxophone); JC Jones (bass) and Loic Kessous (computer sound processing) 7. Slava Ganelin (piano and synthesizer); Mark O’Leary (guitar) and Akady Gotesman (drums) 9. Spheres Duo: Arnon Zimra (piano) and Zvi Joffe (vibraphone and percussion) 10. John Tchicai and Albert Berger (tenor saxophones); Steve Horenstein (baritone saxophone) and Noam David (drums)

Track Listing: One: One Slyshno 1. (00:26) 2. (22:10) 3. (26:21) 4. (12:35) 5. (06:26)

Personnel: One: Slava Ganelin (piano and percussion) and Vladimir Volkov (bass)

Track Listing: Untitled: 1. Number 12 2. Homage to Matisse 3. Number 61 (Brown, Blue, Brown on Blue) [t,p,s] 4. Yellow, Orange, Red on Orange [t,p,s] 5. White, Yellow, Red on Yellow 6. Light, Earth and Blue 7. Ochre and Red on Red [t,p,b] 8. White Band (Number 27) [v.t] 9. Three Reds [v,s] 10. Blue Cloud 11. White Cloud 12. Four Reds [t,b,s] 13. Black, Ochre, Red and Red [t,b,s] 14. Red, Gray, White on Yellow 15. Red, Black, Orange, Yellow on Yellow 16. Untitled (1959)

Personnel: Untitled: Jen Baker (trombone); Ariel Shibolet (soprano saxophone); Scott R. Looney (piano); Damon Smith (bass) and Aurora Josephson (voice)

Track Listing: Falling: 1. The Foot In It 2. The Place With The Space 3. A Blue Dance 4. Wood In The Metal 5. First Conversation 6. Steps In Time 7. Luminous Staircase 8. Glassland 9. Encore

Personnel: Falling: Ned Rothenberg (alto saxophone, clarinet, bass clarinet and shakuhachi) and Slava Ganelin (piano, synthesizer and percussion)

March 20, 2008

Slava Ganelin-Vladimir Volkov

Ne Slyshno
Auris Media Aum 012

Slava Ganelin-Neil Rothenberg

Falling Into Place

Auris Media Aum 007

Various

White Nights Festival Tel Aviv 2006

Kadima Collective KCR 11

Shibolet/Josephson/Baker/Looney/Smith

Untitled (1959)

Kadima Collective KCR 09

Secure in its position as the one true democracy in the Middle East, cosmopolitan elements in Israel have long encouraged the growth of an indigenous jazz scene. Only in the past decade-and-a-half however, have improvisers on the Israeli scene elicited more than local interest. At the same time, associations between many Israelis and musicians in other countries has meant that a Diaspora of improvisers from the Jewish state has set up shop – and garnered fulsome praise – in jazz capitals such as New York.

As the top-flight music on these CDs demonstrates, not every Israeli improviser has emigrated. However it’s also instructive to note that many of the most notable sounds here result from collaborations between Israeli players and outsiders. Plus with the still-young country actively encouraging Jewish immigration, some of Israel’s more advanced players have non-Israeli origins. To take three at random, baritone saxophonist Steve Horenstein is originally an American; bassist JC Jones comes from France; and keyboardist Slava Ganelin’s Ganelin Trio was probably the most famous avant-garde ensemble in the Cold War era Soviet Block, before the Lithuanian Ganelin immigrated to Israel.

Still an internationalist, Ne Slyshno finds the veteran Ganelin hooked up with a former Russian, bassist Vladimir Volkov, whose past credits include work with the Moscow Composers Orchestra and Moscow Art Trio. Conversant with many styles of music, Volkov’s tough plucking and string-stopping resemble that of mainstreamers like Red Mitchell, while his sul ponticello slides and high frequency tremolo patterns are stylistically avant-garde. Someone who also performs traditional music on the viola de gamba, Volkov’s facility includes the ability to add Roma-like flying staccato runs to his solos.

Completed by short, quieter postludes, which allow Ganelin’s grand piano cadenzas to suggest both Artur Rubinstein-like romantic coloration and dynamics and the key-spanking and plinking that relate to Bud Powell’s bop advances, the improvisations at Ne Slyshn’s centre are both extensive and descriptive.

Instructively, no more than one-quarter of the second track passes before the pianist makes clear that despite his liking for contrasting dynamics à la Cecil Taylor, the swaggering echoes he uses distinctively distance him from the American’s concept. Furthermore among the gouts of notes exposed, his playing is still sensitive enough to make room for Volkov’s staccato squeaks on the higher-pitched strings. While Ganelin’s styling may be modern enough to include internal string scraping, manic boogie-woogie-styling and rough chiming notes appear as well. Then by the tune’s climax his Slavic balladic side asserts itself again.

When the two instruments couple on the third track, the bassist’s subterranean plucks are given added impetus by the pianist’s rolling chords patterns. In fact, Volkov’s double-stopping percussiveness when added to Ganelin’s cross-handed plinking and cymbal slaps – the pianist also plays percussion – almost transforms the two musicians into a bop trio. Just as quickly bird-screeching rappelling on the bull fiddle’s strings splinter the piano’s Europeanized melodies, leaving more space for bell-ringing and the squeaks of plastic toys. Ramping up his keys with foot pedal pressure to full Russian classical mode, Ganelin’s widely splayed forward motion is only moderated by Volkov’s modulated string slapping.

A year previously Ganelin met American multi-reedist Ned Rothenberg for a live concert in Jaffa. It foreshadowed some of his simpatico work with Volkov, but elsewhere seems more distant than any land-sharing proposal from either the Palestinian or Israeli side. Three of the first four numbers expose Rothenberg’s skill on clarinet, bass clarinet and alto saxophone. The fourth is a more-than-34-minute solo tour-de-force from Ganelin called “A Place With The Space”. It’s so self-contained, that “A Place With The Space” could be a Territories settler’s view of the rest of the country.

Throughout, Ganelin seem intent on not only on creating a fantasia of organic piano patterns, but also boost his admittedly rudimentary percussion skills. Later on, he confirm that his synthesizer is capable of replicating any timbre from that of the lumbering bassoon in Peter and the Wolf to thundering E. Power Biggs-like organ stops. Again creating a détente between Romantic-styled cadences and bebop runs on the piano, Ganelin’s pitch-sliding tones and soundboard vibrations are more descriptive than the thumping percussion or the swirling, blurred patterns from the synth.

For his part, Rothenberg, who has held his own in duets with British saxophone master Evan Parker among others, defines versatility. “The Foot In It” exhibits his tongue-slapping chalumeau register and widely spaced multiphonics on bass clarinet. “A Blue Dance” for clarinet shows how harsh trills, legato chirps and flutter tonguing can be built up into rhythmic refractions of continuous breathing with verbalized hocketing and expressive high pitches. Introducing the properties of his alto saxophone’s metal as well as its reed, “Wood In The Metal” is cumulative program of high intensity and extended pitches that by exposing every sibilant tone produce a sound midway between bagpipe chanter and a pan flute.

Somewhat anti-climatic, the set of short duets that follow merely gilds the two sonic lilies that are exhibited singly. More like jousts than meetings, the feeling persists that each player dons his technical armor as a way to push the other to react. Thus at one point flowery and extended European piano echoes lead to mellow bass clarinet runs, snorts and gentling coloration, with tongue slaps and arpeggios stretching to be more connective. Elsewhere, marimba-like internal piano string echoes underscore single, twittering shakuhachi lines.

A similar congruence, but not-quite connection, exists in the extended free improvisation from Ganelin, drummer Arkady Gotesman and Irish guitarist Mark O’Leary on White Nights Festival. Tel Aviv’s 12-hour musical marathon., the live performances mix’n’match Israelis and visitors in ad-hoc groups. With Gotesman laying down a low rumble and the pianist comping, the guitarist appears eager to break things up by varying what initially seems to be Tal Farlow-like picking with long-lined frails and rock-styled vamps. Meeting him with key patting and pounding plus disassociated runs, Genelin’s post-Energy music and O’Leary post-fusion sounds don’t really gel.

More sympathetic is the drummer’s low-key contribution to “German Poem”, which also features the walking bass of Shmil Frankel, off-centre tolling piano notes from Olga Magieres plus Harold Rubin’s recitation and rustic tongue slapping and twittering clarinet work. The instrumental section trumps the words however.

However on “Ship of Fools”, an interactive trio of saxophonist Horenstein, bassist Jones and Loic Kessous on computer sound processing, makes better use of bull fiddle and reed timbres. Content to process and spit back the purely instrumental tones, the computer only betrays its presence with the odd shuddering pulse. Overall, the piece is an essay in cooperation. Working up to high intensity, Jones ratchets his bow across the strings producing sul ponticello lines, rough strums and spiccato ricocheting. Meanwhile Horenstein snorts split tones from the baritone’s highest register, steady, low-pitched honks and tongue flutters. Eventually reached is an accord of tremolo tones that mulch portions of computer warbles, saxophone timbres and bass string thumps.

Other saxophonist on hand during White Nights include Danish tenor saxophonist John Tchicai and local Ariel Shibolet. Despite his long history in outside music, Tchicai’s trio with John Bostock on piano and Noam David on drums seems to meander towards adagio ballad territory except for the occasional off-kilter reed squeak. Similarly, Shibolet’s two brief tracks on soprano saxophone with Yoram Lachish’ electronics expose circular breathing and electronic shrilling, but never really gather momentum.

A more impressive showcase for Shibolet is Untitled (1959). Recorded around the same time as White Nights but in Oakland, Calif. it matches the soprano saxophonist with four of his Bay area contemporaries: trombonist Jen Baker, pianist Scott R. Loney – who also recorded, mixed and mastered the CD – bassist Damon Smith and vocalist Aurora Josephson.

All track titles are taken from paintings by Mark Rothko, with the sfumato coloration produced by all quintet members. For instance, “White, Yellow, Red on Yellow” gives Shibolet space for altissimo peeps and irregular vibrations as Baker’s ‘bone notes sluice downwards, Loney twangs and stops the piano’s internal strings and Smith slides acro tones back-and-forth. Eventually Josephson’s choked bel canto tones make common cause with the saxophonist’s circular breathing.

Braying slurs from Baker are the initial defining factor of the title track, soon joined by the saxophonist’s rolling tongue slaps. Double and triple tonguing to a multiphonic display, the trombonist eventually lets loosen with elongated and accumulated trills and tones, almost undifferentiated from Shibolet’s reed bites. Pitter-pattering keyboard lines and Smith’s thick slaps put the solos in context.

Other improvisations encompass air sax runs, keyboard arpeggios and vocal onomatopoeia from Josephson, though “Blue Cloud”, the almost 7½-minute longest track touches on New music. Tough bow slices and near-the-pegs plucks from Smith, crash-and-bang chording from Looney meet undulating wah-wah notes from Baker and colored air breaths and thick, irregular vibrato jumps from the saxophonist. Marshalling her collection of near-inaudible croaks and duck-like growls, Josephson’s quivering throat textures match extended trombone plunger tones and trilling grace notes from Shibolet.

Sanctions and settlements on the West Bank to the contrary, cooperation creates more evolution – musical and otherwise – than isolation. Each of these CDs demonstrates that, in a completely musical way, in one fashion or another.

-- Ken Waxman

.

Track Listing: White: 1. Improv 1 2. The Holy Coordinator 3. German Poem 4. Untitled 1 5. Ship of Fools 6. Untitled 2 7. Free Improv 8. Improv 1 9. Anima 10. Summit for Albert Ayler

Personnel: White: 1. & 8 Ariel Shibolet (soprano saxophone) and Yoram Lachish (electronics) 2. John Tchicai (tenor saxophone); John Bostock (piano) and Noam David (drums) 3. Harold Rubin (clarinet and voice); Olga Magieres (piano); Shmil Frankel (bass) and Arkady Gotesman (drums) 4. & 6.Wlodzimierz Kiniorski (tenor saxophone and flute); Rafal Mazur (bass) and Markek Choloniewski (electronics) 5. Steve Horenstein (baritone saxophone); JC Jones (bass) and Loic Kessous (computer sound processing) 7. Slava Ganelin (piano and synthesizer); Mark O’Leary (guitar) and Akady Gotesman (drums) 9. Spheres Duo: Arnon Zimra (piano) and Zvi Joffe (vibraphone and percussion) 10. John Tchicai and Albert Berger (tenor saxophones); Steve Horenstein (baritone saxophone) and Noam David (drums)

Track Listing: One: One Slyshno 1. (00:26) 2. (22:10) 3. (26:21) 4. (12:35) 5. (06:26)

Personnel: One: Slava Ganelin (piano and percussion) and Vladimir Volkov (bass)

Track Listing: Untitled: 1. Number 12 2. Homage to Matisse 3. Number 61 (Brown, Blue, Brown on Blue) [t,p,s] 4. Yellow, Orange, Red on Orange [t,p,s] 5. White, Yellow, Red on Yellow 6. Light, Earth and Blue 7. Ochre and Red on Red [t,p,b] 8. White Band (Number 27) [v.t] 9. Three Reds [v,s] 10. Blue Cloud 11. White Cloud 12. Four Reds [t,b,s] 13. Black, Ochre, Red and Red [t,b,s] 14. Red, Gray, White on Yellow 15. Red, Black, Orange, Yellow on Yellow 16. Untitled (1959)

Personnel: Untitled: Jen Baker (trombone); Ariel Shibolet (soprano saxophone); Scott R. Looney (piano); Damon Smith (bass) and Aurora Josephson (voice)

Track Listing: Falling: 1. The Foot In It 2. The Place With The Space 3. A Blue Dance 4. Wood In The Metal 5. First Conversation 6. Steps In Time 7. Luminous Staircase 8. Glassland 9. Encore

Personnel: Falling: Ned Rothenberg (alto saxophone, clarinet, bass clarinet and shakuhachi) and Slava Ganelin (piano, synthesizer and percussion)

March 20, 2008

Jean Claude Jones with Friends

Jean Claude Jones with Friends
Kadima Collective

J.C. Jones with Friends
Duos II
Kadima Collective

Ariel Shibolet
Metal Tube & Consciousness
Leo Records

By Ken Waxman
September 5, 2005

Boasting – if that’s the right word – the only flourishing Free Improv scene in the Middle East, except for some faint stirrings in Lebanon, Israel is beginning to amass a number of improvisers able to hold their own in any context.

Already a few of the more adventurous have become better known, as they, like countless players before them from many countries have emigrated to larger music centres. Reedists Assif Tsahar and Ori Kaplan have made their mark in New York, while fusion-oriented drummer Asaf Sirkis has become recognized in London.

More crucially, others – some of whom immigrated to Israel from elsewhere – are involved with creating a vibrant homegrown scene. That’s where the Kadima Collective comes into the picture. With funding from the United States, Kadima, under the de facto leadership of Tunisian-born, French-raised, Berklee College grad, bassist Jean Claude Jones, promotes concerts and produces CDs in its own studio with the aim of connecting creative local improvisers with one another. Kadima’s first two CDs feature players duetting with Jones, who has been associated with the Jazz Department of the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance since 1987.

On hand are a violinist from the United States, a Norwegian-born cellist, a veteran South African born poet and clarinetist, Sabra musicians who emphasize either vocals or woodwinds, and one ringer: American bass clarinetist and alto saxophonist Ned Rothenberg. Soprano saxophonist Ariel Shibolet, one of the three impressive reedists featured on the two discs – alto and baritone saxophonist Gal Lev and flautist Albert Berger are the others – has recorded own solo session, Metal Tube & Consciousness.

Performances on the Kadima CDs range from divine to dreadful, with most listing towards the former attribute. Unfortunately, a minority of the participants sound undisciplined rather than free, as if this is their first experiment in free improv. Most of the spoken word/vocal performances are a bit abstruse as well, relating more to dadaesque sounds or Beat jazz-and-poetry than hard core improv. Linked to the tradition of Allen Ginsberg, Jaap Blonk or Shelley Hirsch, these verbal/vocal performances are a bit remote from the other improvisations.

On the plus side, the one foreigner, Rothenberg, recorded live, doesn’t mute his ideas in this context. There’s no hesitancy in his fantasia of multiphonics, overblowing and other extended techniques. A world traveler who has performed in Russia, the Baltic states, South Korea and Japan, and whose collaborators have included tabla player Samir Chaterjee and British reedist Evan Parker, playing in Israel is merely another surmountable challenge for him. Jones, who has improvised with saxophonists as different as Arnie Lawrence, Dave Liebman and Stan Getz, is comfortable in this setting as well.

On “Petit Echo”, for example, Jones thumps spiccato lines and squeaks from his strings to meet Rothenberg’s wiggling freak notes and curlicue double tonguing and snorting. Further harsh tones from the reedist are met with reverberating pulsations. Then “Pizsa” begins with pitched intensity from Rothenberg’s tongue fluttering and Jones’ strummed bass lines. When the American begins a sprightly melody in a higher node, the Israeli fingerpops behind him. Later, there’s a comb-and-tissue-paper roughness in the reedist’s tone as he pushes and pulls doubled timbres up and down the scale. That’s perfectly matched with banjo-like clanking and what appears to be a drum stick bopping on Jones’ bass strings.

Former American, Klezmer violinist Daniel Hoffman doesn’t come across as impressively. His two improvisations with Jones are mostly concerned with the sort of trilling-sparrow pitches that can be produced by undulating bow pressure on the highest partials. Thus Jones provides low-pitched tremolo undertones on one tune and doubles the fiddler’s line in the upper register on the other.

Norwegian-born cellist Yuval Mesner, whose experience encompasses stints in World music, flamenco-jazz and rock bands, fares much better. Apparently emboldened by his touring experience, he embraces atonality, stabbing the strings for harsh notes, moving past standard tuning for elevated tones and is unafraid of staccato squealing. Contrapuntally, the bassist counters with partials and quarter tones at points tapping his strings, and evolving in curving, double-stopping unison with the cellist.

With a similarly eclectic background as lead singer in a progressive rock band and as a member of vocal ensemble, Maya Dunietz’s three improvisations reveal a surprisingly adept pianist. Still, there are times her five fingered rumbles and darting dynamics hint at avant-garde parody. Especially in the second improvisation when her hyper-kinetic cadences seem to roister into a stupefied quasi-Ragtime, following an episode of tiny animal scratches from the bassist, you apprehensively wonder if she’s spoofing or serious.

The third improv underscores the question as she skips arpeggios across the keys like a child skimming a stone across the water. Piling on as many note clusters and octave runs as possible, she adds childlike Wicked Witch of the West vocal noises. All this is in response to sweeping portamento from Jones that appears to allow his axe to moo, bovine-like.

Someone whose jazz experience has encompassed gigs with New York-based saxman Kaplan, pianist Daniel Sarid and Albert Berger, who is featured on one long improvisation on disc one, percussionist Hagai Fershtman appears to be more about body English than subtlety on his three duets with Jones. As the bassist also uses electronics here, his spiccato soloing is sometimes jumbled among glass-splintering timbres. Responding with quick action from bells, cymbals and ratcheting percussion, the whirl-drum echoes Fershtman produces suggest African rather than Middle Eastern roots.

Overall, however, for elevated jazz/improv essence the individual duets between Jones and the three Sabra reedmen – Berger on flute, Shibolet on soprano saxophone, and, most impressively, on eight tracks split between the two discs, Gan Lev on alto and baritone saxophones – are most satisfying.

Usually a saxophonist, whose most recent CD is dedicated to Steve Lacy, Berger concentrates on lower-pitched, mouth-breathing flute vibrations on his track. Alternating vocal cries and fripple-blocked textures, his tone is both dense and stately. Vibrating stark, gong-like sine waves and bell-like pulsations, Jones’ electronics throb beneath the flute lines, and he also adds bass continuum. Next time it would be advantageous to hear Berger on saxophone though

Commanding saxophone presence arises from Lev, a former member of the Israeli Saxophone Quartet, who has performed with the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra. “Snake Me”, on the second CD, is one definite performance where he blows not only saxophone but home-made didjeridoo. Soon doubled timbres split into higher-pitched elephant –trumpeting mixed with percussive rumbling from his other horn. Using sympathetic flattement he makes the vibrating lines more sonorous, somehow simultaneously honking a Klezmer-like line. When he isn’t providing a cushioning obbligato for himself, the bassman’s deliberate plucking fills the bill, sometimes sul tasto, sometimes sul ponticello.

It’s not only Lev’s full-bodied baritone sax growls that impress, but – as he shows on “Improvisation No. 3” on the first disc -- his commanding alto saxophone presence. Here he reaches a crescendo of rough, yet placid alto textures that appear to double tongue into bagpipe chanter suggestions. Trebling tones in staccato counterpoint with themselves, probably some of the extra high-pitched colors arise from the bassist’s electronics. In the mean time, the bull fiddler seems to be occupied with creating pedal point accompaniment.

A decade younger than Lev, Shibolet is also a member of the Tel Aviv Art Ensemble, a local Free Jazz band. On the first disc here his two short selections are dedicated to the late German bassist Peter Kowald, whose solo work as well as his virtuosity affected him as much as they did Jones. The later may be using piezo pickups to extend the rough edges of his strings so as not to replicate the Kowald style, even though most of his work here encompasses swiped textures. For his part, Shibolet blows pure colored air through his horn, the better to emphasize its metallic qualities. Elsewhere he uses tongue slaps and barking shrills.

Those sorts of actions appear in abundance on Metal Tube & Consciousness, his solo CD, along with other extended techniques such as gravelly throat crackles and whistled watery tones. Those show up on “Field n.1”, along with polyphonic scratched and scraped metal and a short coda of bubbly blowing. Besides patches of circular breathing Shibolet climbs the scale – with a pinched ney-like tone on “For Bach III”; turns a piercing and vibrating arched pitch into a shofar suggestion on “Black Stone On A Plate”; and somehow manages to imply the ruggedness of an atonal Gaelic ballad with dissonant circular breathing on “Slow Irish Circles”.

Metal Tube’s opening track, “Slow Change, Slow Development” is an almost 10- minute tour de force of glottal punctuation with vibrato and tonguing changes. Pushing his output into split tones, midway through, Shibolet’s single horn creates a constant ostinato interrupted at time by higher-pitched trills. It’s as if he had a chanter as well as a reed, expanding on the bagpipe emulations Lev produces on his Kadmina duets. Squeaking and pushing out serpentine lines, Shibolet constructs entire phrases in altissimo without losing the thread of the melody, climaxing by producing two circular-breathed lines which seem to fill all the sound spaces.

“Epilogue”, the 16th and finale tune is just that. Focusing on producing unvarying straight lines that add a certain gravitas to the proceedings, this theme echoes the first track. Both a postlude and a summing up of what went before, it rounds the improvisational circle with a smooth legato conclusion.

On the evidence here, Israeli free musicians seem as advanced sonically as their society as a whole is socially. Shibolet has made his global debut. Now what’s needed is more CDs from him and a few more, widely distributed discs by a selection of the musicians in the Kadima Collective.

September 5, 2005