Ike Levin Trio

Gauci/Bisio/Dickey
Live at Scholes Street Studio
Gauci Music No #

Free Jazz from the heartland and New York proves that despite the so-called Jazz charts and Jazz business, freeform improvising remains as potent as ever. Of course the world’s focus on major centres means that the members of Portland, Oregon-based Ike Levin’s trio are even less known then the Manhattan-based players on the other disc. Levin, who has recorded with Joel Futterman and Alvin Fielder is a veteran tenor saxophonist/bass clarinetist, drummer Tim DuRoche has played with many visitors such as Thollem McDonas and bassist Shoa-Way Wu works regularly in Portland. In the east, tenor saxophonist Stephen Gauci organizes frequent Brooklyn gigs playing with a cross section of creative musicians, while bassist Michael Bisio and drummer Whit Dickey are associated with multiple international players, especially Matthew Shipp.

Fully in the spiritual mode of Late Coltrane, Levin’s tenor saxophone expands textures at great length during the CD’s eight selections, smearing, scooping, squealing and slurring notes and tone patterns and flutter-tongued variations. All the while he maintains a dialogue with the bassist’s string strums and pops and the drummer’s thumps, rumble and cymbal shakes. The trio doesn’t have to operate at high velocity as it proves on a track like “Nocturne”. Long-lined clarion trills from the sax duet with muted bass pulses, uncovering motifs from swing to Blues that torque as Wu comments on each saxophone pattern. More mellow playing bass clarinet, Levin sometimes wallows in the woody chalumeau register or runs the changes into clarion cries or altissimo squeals that trill nearly endlessly. On “Bluish” he alternates a capella sequences with scoops and smears backed by press rolls and drum thumps. Throughout he and the others show mastery in painting sound pictures in broad strokes or atom-sized doits and stops.

Having worked with confident saxophonists like Louie Belogenis and Joe McPhee, Bisio is much more aggressive in his playing than Wu. You can hear it in the fourth section of this extended improvisation. Slicing and stopping a string introduction, he uncovers multiple arco and pizzicato tones with motifs ranging from spiccato pressure to basement-level sul ponticello. As his strokes toughen, Gauci adds splintered honks and snorts and Dickey drum pops, as the bass exposition vibrates sympathetically. Considering the live performance includes almost as many interlude of molten percussion ruffs, and backbeats and stressed drum top affiliations and bass strategies as well as radical reed jujitsu, the integrated playing of this trio is constantly confirmed. The saxophonist favors altissimo squawks and elongated multiphonics throughout. But his spewing of flattement and split tones never ventures into exhibitionism or upsets the balance among the trio members

Prime instance of this occurs on the extended third section. Following a slippery and layered unaccompanied string introduction, once the saxophonist moves from moderato clarion tones to dog-whistle-like squeaks, Bisio strengthens his strokes in broken chord affiliation with Gauci. They two lobby harsh sounds at one another as the narrative is stretched further and further without breaking. Adding gravelly scoops to his output, Gauci’s reed honks eventually meld with the others, as Dickey joins the fray, boosting his nerve beats and clatters to firm drum splats.

As common as it may be, free-from improvisation from trios consisting of strings, percussion and reeds remains as potent as ever. These discs prove the legitimacy of that trio configuration from with reports from two areas of the US.

–Ken Waxman

Track Listing: ReEmergence: 1. Unimetry 2. Flourish 3. Dawning 4. Inception 5. Nocturne 6. Spirit Joy 7. Opt In 8. Bluish

Personnel: ReEmergence: Ike Levin (tenor saxophone and bass clarinet); Shoa-Way Wu (bass) and Tim DuRoche (drums)

Track Listing: Live: 1. Improvisation 1 2. Improvisation 2 3. Improvisation 3 4. Improvisation 4 5. Improvisation 5

Personnel: Live: Stephen Gauci (tenor saxophone); Michael Bisio (bass) and Whit Dickey (drums)