Charlotte Keeffe

More like a CV or in contemporary terms a LinkedIn page, British trumpeter/flugelhornist Charlotte Keeffe provides a comprehensive resumé of her skills during this CD’s nine tracks. That means she’s featured playing solo, in duo, leading a quartet and playing and conducting the London Improvisers Orchestra. (LIO) There’s impressive work throughout, but like the person who provides too much detail on a job application, a tighter focus would be preferable.

As it is she demonstrates conclusively that she can maintain her capillary authority in free improvisations with guitarist Diego Sampieri and playing solo. Swaying against the guitarist’s delicate finger picking, she positions her slurring exposition with mutes, half-valve and other effects. On her own she invokes electronics for intricate live sampling and timbre multiplication that allow her to cascade bugling tones on one track and otherwise communicate the essence of “The Melody’s in the Post” with warm expansions of tangents and textures. The three tracks with guitarist Moss Freed, bassist Ashley John Long and drummer Ben Handysides build on the quartet’s strengths with plunger blasts or shifted shading prodding the guitarist to counter her expositions with staccato string stings, intense strums or frails. “A Horse Named Galaxy” adds a swing feel with Keeffe’s brassy spurts indicating Bop, Cool and Free tropes as the double bass thumps and Freed doubles the brass player’s part with clucking rhythm guitar work.

Undaunted by the weight of LIO’s instrumentation that at times swells to 40 musicians, in her conductions Keeffe is insightful enough not to call on too many soloists. Embroidering percussion thumps and electronic drones with squeals and split tones from the horns, sequences are mercurial and measured. The final conduction gives the disc its title. Impressively its evolution from crescendos to microtones makes space for solo sequences highlighting tailgate trombone blasts, flute trills, trumpet screeching and voice verbalization, “To Steve Beresford” makes better use of the orchestra. The track is directed so that stop-time patterning and shuffle expositions, driven by percussion strokes and split tone reed deconstruction, draw back enough to emphasize Dave Powell’s slick tuba burbles, Trevor Taylor’s vibes clanks and Neil Metcalfe’s flute whistles. When the dedicatee finally injects cascades of rickety-tick pseudo-ragtime piano, the disrupted narrative remains constant enough to slip, slide and smear to a concentrated finale.

There’s nothing to complain about on Keeffe’s premier session. Now that’s she’s demonstrated her dynamic range though she should perhaps enlarge on just one of those skills on her next outing.

–Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. 1200 Photographs# 2. OM^ 3. Mysterious Breath/This One’s For The Bees…* 4. Sweet, Corn# 5. The Melody’s in the Post 6. To Steve Beresford* 7. Noizemaschin 8. A Horse Named Galaxy# 9. Right Here, Right Now*

Personnel: Charlotte Keeffe (trumpet and flugelhorn or conduction) with Moss Freed (guitar)#; Ashley John Long (bass)# and Ben Handysides (drums)# or Diego Sampieri (guitar)^ or The London Improvisers Orchestra*: Daniel Cano-Amaro, Jonny Martin, Dawid Frydryk (trumpet, flugelhorn); Robert Jarvis, Edward Lucas Simon Petermann (trombone); Dave Powell (tuba); Dee Byrne, Martin Clarke, Caroline Kraabel (alto saxophones); Adrian Northover (alto, soprano saxophones); Sue Lynch (tenor saxophone, clarinet; Cath Roberts (baritone saxophone); Jacques Foschia (clarinet); João Pedro Viegas, Sebastian Sterkowicz (bass clarinets); Emily Suzanne Shapiro (clarinet, bass clarinet); Neil Metcalfe. Phoebe Bognár (flutes) Steve Beresford (piano, electronics);, Douglas Benford (melodica, harmonium); John Bisset Martin Vishnick (guitars); Pascal Marzan (microtonal 10-string guitar); Jerry Wigens (mandolin); Phil Durrant (e-bowed dulcimer, mandola); Thodoris Ziarkas (lyra); Linda Jankowska, Susanna Ferrar Olivia Moore , Pei Ann Yeoh Philip Wachsmann (violins); Charlotte Hug, Ivor Kallin (viola, voice); Gero Kempf, John Edwards. David Leahy, Mark Hilton (bass); Jackie Walduck (vibraphone); Trevor Taylor (gong, vibraphone) Marcello Magliocchi (drums); Lukax Santana Byran Styles Dave Fowler, Emil Karlsen (percussion); Stephan Barrett (bells); Ng Chor Guan (theremi); Martin Hackett, Sarah Washington Knut Aufermann Andrew Ciccone (electronics); Phil Minton (voice, trumpet); Adam Bohman (objects, voice); Maggie Nicols (voice)