Joe Fiedler Quartet

Nabou Claerhout
Trombone Ensemble
W.E.R.F. No #

More versatile than many realize, trombone timbres can lend themselves to multiple purposes, especially when it comes to creative music. Young Antwerp-born Nabou Claerhout, who has splayed with everyone from Dave Douglas to Bert Joris, experiments with one formula which experimented with in the past by an expanded Jay & Kay and the Brass Connection by creating six compositions/arrangements for an eight-piece trombone choir and a rhythm section, which is firmly in the Jazz tradition. There’s only one trombonist on Will Be Fire. But veteran New York stylist Joe Fiedler, whose gigs range from Satoko Fujii’s big band to Sesame Street, uses electronics to create enough textures for multiple players. He has extra low-brass help from tubaist Marcus Rojas as well as ingenious guitarist Pete McCann and drummer Jeff Davis.

Drawing mostly from Europe, Claerhout’s sackbut associates include Peter Delannoye, Nathan Surquin, Jeroen Verberne, Rory Ingham and Maarten Combrink, Tobias Herzog on bass trombone and bass tuba as well as U.S. trombonist Robin Eubanks on several tracks. Also on hand are guitarist Gijs Idema, bassist Cyrille Obermüller and drummer  Daniel Jonkers.  Expanding on the trombone’s naturally rounded sound, she advances arrangements that ripen multi brass tones into harmony that flourishes in union, with space left for individual brass expression plus guitar strumming and rick-tock drumming. Eubanks, Herzog and Ingham benefit from this on a track like “Murphy All the Way” where consecutive brass connections distinguish among vocalized effects, flutter tongued pops and solo movement from portamento to near-dissonance. At the same time empathic backing riffs prevent a slide from dissonance to atonality as double bass plucks and drum smacks steady the movement.

With the backing of an interlocking trombone choir, Claerhout leads the way on “A Day at the Huge Field With a Little House” with her horizontal expression encompassing shakes, seconded by moderated pinched and played down brass flutters. Although convex guitar picking adds a contrapuntal challenge, she returns to the introduction for an affiliated trombone/guitar fade. Elsewhere the canny arrangements encompass sequences that replicate a canon that unite for maximum  power, strengthened with bass trombone drones but open enough for brass call-and response. Another trope mates velvety inferences from the horns with enough drum paradiddles and ascending guitar licks that bite is added to ballad. Individually the most telling track is “A Duet For Three”. Here Claerhout and Eubanks move tonal variations between them, with mutes and slide positions opening up the piece with mute-projected, motivated slurs and multiphonic possibilities. Together coming to a  linear narrative it might also be seen as home Eubanks, 68, is confirming Claerhout, 30, as a member of the  top-ranked trombone fellowship.

Someone who is already part of that august group, Fiedler, 58, only needs a quartet to spawn nine energetic tracks that are playful as they are progressive. With Rojas blasting out tuba continuum throughout, and McCann’s guitar prestidigitation moving through patterns that could come from Rock and C&W as well as Jazz, standard instrumentation isn’t necessary. The trombonist’s s use of electronics adds more tones with unexpected timbral invention. Plus the voltage add-ons often make it difficult to tell whether a particular passage is played by the trombonist or guitarist, adding an elements of pleasant surprise to the nine tracks.

Touching on diverse styles the quartet. “Crooked” for instance mates a swagging Laton-dance-like rhythm with metal-strained trombone notes, balanced on renal honks from Rojas ending with quick movements with tuba and drums as partners in terpsichorean swing. On the other hand tuba sputters and pumps confirm “Graffiti’s” originality as Rock-like guitar flanges, drum shuffles and electrified trombone portamento slider up and down to a stop-time climax. McCann’s licks aren’t always aggressive though. They can also be rounded and pacific. That’s proven on “Song For Coop” where single note guitar clips meet up with warm, low-pitched vibrations from Fiedler for sympathetic theme elaboration that stretches comfortably while preserving a rhythmic centre.

Eventually after angling the other tracks in distinctive directions with half-valve trombone squirts, stubby rhythm guitar frails, tuba growls, percussion backbeat and an overlay of electrified oscillations the band build s up to the concluding “Peek Power Box”. Despite its wimpy title it turns out to resemble a funky theme from Shaft exercise with wah-wah Watson-like guitar riffs and multiple electrified moans from the trombonist. Since this is a Jazz not a groove session, Fiedler’s vocoder-like strains and McCann’s organ-like tremolo chording also move in unexpected directions even as the direction is straight ahead.

Imposing on their own, each of these discs also confirm the versatility and adaptability of the humble trombone,

–Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Trombone: 1. Slide Unit (Live at Flagey)* 2. A Day at the Huge Field With a Little House  3. Murphy All the Way* 4. HUTCH 5. A Duet For Three*  6. Wistful 7. Illusion

Personnel: Trombone: Nabou Claerhout, Robin Eubanks,* Rory Ingham, Peter Delannoye, Nathan Surquin, Jeroen Verberne, Maarten Combrink (trombones); Tobias Herzog (bass trombone, bass tuba); Gijs Idema (guitar); Cyrille Obermüller (bass); Daniel Jonkers (drums)

Track Listing: Fire: 1. Will Be Fire 2. How’s Skippy 3. Graffiti’s 4. Merger 5. Song For Coop 6. Squirrel Hill 7. Crooked 8. W. 21st St. 9. Peek Power Box

Personnel: Fire: Joe Fiedler (trombone); Marcus Rojas (tuba); Pete McCann (guitar) and Jeff Davis (drums