Ottaviano/Gallo/Faraò

Kresten Osgood Quintet
Live at H15 Studio
ILK 356 LP

Two inventive recasting of the Jazz repertoire are created with antithetical treatments. The closest thing to a party record you’d find from committed creative musicians Live at H15 Studio is a compendium of tracks from late-night revels by Danish drummer Kresten Osgood’s quintet. It features 10 tracks where the players manage to turn a collection of Hard Bop classics and some originals into exercises in free-form celebration.  More serious, but no less imaginative, Lacy in the Sky with Diamonds is a salute to the influence of his late teacher – American saxophonist Steve Lacy – by Italian soprano saxophonist Roberto Ottaviano with his interpretation in trio form of seven originals by the American mixed in with four instant compositions from the group.

Osgood, who has worked with everyone from Mark Dresser to Maria Faust, and his local quintet members – trumpeter Erik Kimestad, tenor saxophonist Mads Egetoft, pianist Jeppe Zeeberg and bassist Matthias Petri – are respected sound explorers on their own. But on this disc they appear to welcome the chance to figuratively let their hair down and keep the festivities going while playing tunes from Elmo Hope, Slide Hampton, Clifford Jordan and others. Imagine the Jazz Messengers as a funk band.

Egetoft for instance, lets loose on tracks like “Subway” and others with a gritty, guttural tone and squeaky, strained tonal curves that could have seen him bar-walking with the best of them on the former Chitlin Circuit. Zeeberg, who also projects a sensitive ballad touch here, demonstrates that he would have been an assert to a 1930s rent party with honky-tonk asides and keyboard slides on “Blues for Muse” backed by hard drum accents and reed shrieks. He also demonstrates a pseudo-drunken keyboard swagger elsewhere. Petri’s measured string thumps introduces “A Case of Emergency” –which also features the pianist cramming as many notes into as many bars as possible – yet also manages steady time keeping and rhythmic anchoring despite, or perhaps because of, loud audience screams

Just as Kimestad’s triplet trumpet firing is prominent on tracks like “Stars Over Marrakech” and others, he fulfills the other part of a Bop trumpeter’s persona on “The Halleys Comet – Light Blue Blues” with a wide, sweet tone that impeccably creates melodic horizontal lines in unison undulations with the saxophonist’s slurs and split tones. Beside contributing his own tunes,  Osgood joins with Petri to keep the rhythm on an ambulatory keel, yet also demonstrates with his pops and accents how drum playing has evolved since the Hard Bop era. Played with piano cross patterning, tough drum rumbles and jack-in-the-box leaps from the horn section, the session concludes with jolly Jazz Messenger-like showpiece that easily suggests that the party momentum will continue.

More low-key, but not low spirited, the Lacy salute is focused on the trio members’ resourcefulness to honor without imitating. Ottaviano, who has recorded with everyone from Mal Waldron to Alexander Hawkins, manages to extend reed techniques into the future, while staying true to the existing material. Drummer/percussionist Ferdinando Faraò, also involved in multi-media projects, and Danilo Gallo who plays bass, banjo and guitar here and also leads his own bands, fit the program perfectly.

Among the group compositions, the standout is probably “Diamond Flock Accident”. Not only does it contain a sensitive drum introduction, paced by crunching guitar strums, but the saxophonist’s straightforward contribution manages to reference some Lacy heads while also maintaining a fluttering lyricism. Elsewhere reed whorls and whistles, bass string strums and cymbal coloration suggest that Klezmer may have affected a young Lacy as much as his better-known Dixieland affiliation.

Ottaviano and company don’t treat the Lacy compositions as sacred texts either. For instance a medley of “Bone – These Foolish Things”  slides a jaunty superfast note bending reed smears, bass string pumps and cymbal clatters into a spittle-encrusted growly saxophone variation, before revealing the standard tune underpinnings, paced by flattened drum top pops. “Napping” is hardly that, since irregular reed yelps and bites, and arco bass scratches introduce Ottaviano’s a capella limning of the theme until banjo clangs and  metallic drum reverb sets up a contrapuntal challenge to the concluding flutters. “Esteem” is characterized by the saxophonist’s triple tongue twitters and dog-whistle heightened squeaks that supplely move up the down the scale until the head reappears. The concluding “Prospectus” on the other hand is turned into a jocular swing piece with guitar strums at the top, a simple beat from the drummer and with the narrative pulled together with a bass solo.

Freed from note perfect recreation both these discs show how the existing Jazz repertoire can be expressed in inventive and originals ways.

–Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Live: 1. Subway 2. The Halleys Comet – Light Blue Blues 3. Boa 4. Gilbert’s Mood 5. A Case of Emergency 6. Blues for Muse 7. Bernie’s 8. Long Shadows 9. Stars Over Marrakech 10. Happy Pretty

Personnel: Live: Erik Kimestad (trumpet); Mads Egetoft (tenor saxophone); Jeppe Zeeberg (piano); Matthias Petri (bass) and Kresten Osgood (drums)

Track Listing: Lacy: 1. Esteem 2. Deadline 3. Napping 4. And the Sky Weeps 5. No One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest 6. 7. The Owl 8. Hard Landing 9. Diamond Flock Accident 10. Bound 11. Prospectus

Personnel: Lacy: Roberto Ottaviano (soprano saxophone); Danilo Gallo (bass, banjo and guitar) and Ferdinando Faraò (drums and  percussion)