The Wandering One

Trumpet, bass and drums isn’t a common configuration, but blending those instrumental textures during three prolonged improvisations is another instance of associating the pedagogical and the adventurous. Summarizing theories on free music in print and boosting its reach leading improv workshops, UK drummer and AMM founder Eddie Prévost always welcomes new playing partners. London bassist Tom Wheatley, who except for the disc’s penultimate minutes limits his rigid arco slices and rhythmic pizzicato thumps to an undercurrent, is recording with Prévost for the second time. Swiss trumpeter Silvan Schmid is a newbie.

That means much of the tracks’ piquancy come from hearing how the shifts in tempo, pitch and technique expressed by drummer and trumpeter play off one another. Relying mostly on hand pats, stick clips patterns and rolls and cymbal raps, Prévost responds appropriately to Schmid’s commotion or composure. If the brass player’s fireworks involve open horn smears and bugling triplets as he works up the scale to snarky, buzzing reflux, the drummer hardens his strokes to ruffs and rebounds. If, more commonly Schmid defaults to brass burbles, tone echoes or singular yelps, gentling slides or paradiddles come from the drummer.

Never is this call-and-response define as teacher-student interaction. Instead as the three broken octave expositions evolve, it’s make clear that Prévost’s percussion contributions are made in tandem or for amplification of the other players’ ideas. And they reciprocate in kind.

While High Laver is the location of the church in which the disc was recorded, surely High Level Levitation would have been a better title.

— Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Clearing The Detritus Of Time 2. The Parsing Of Sounds 3. Remembering To Forget

Personnel: Silvan Schmid (trumpet); Tom Wheatley (bass) and Eddie Prévost (drums)