JENNY SCHEINMAN

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28 March 2013 | THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORD
Brooklyn Lines...
Chicago Spaces
Klang (Allos Documents)
by Clifford Allen
Soft Focus
Vox Arcana
(Relay Records)
Clarinetist James Falzone is an artist who decidedly
works between and across boundaries. In addition to
composing and playing in a variety of improvising
ensembles, Falzone has been active with throughcomposed
and liturgical music and exploring non-
Western instrumentation and forms. As a soloist
Falzone is concentrated but wonderfully liberated,
with what one might call a ‘classical’ tone that readily
spirals into fierce multiphonics, whirls and dives or an
acerbic, nearly electronic lack of wavering.
When it comes to what one might otherwise deem
a strictly ‘jazz-derived’ group like Klang (with
vibraphonist Jason Adasiewicz, bassist Jason Roebke
and drummer Tim Daisy), the range of Falzone’s
interests and influences become clear and actualized.
Importantly, that diversity doesn’t complicate
proceedings; rather, Klang have a wealth of possibilities
at their disposal that advance and recede in the split
seconds of improvisational choice. Brooklyn Lines…
Chicago Spaces is the quartet’s fourth disc to date and
consists of 11 pieces, 2 which are group improvisations
while the rest are the clarinetist’s tunes. Importantly,
while written by Falzone, they were conceived for this
ensemble and are actualized collectively as “Klangmusic”.
These range from the Rolf Kühn-like
“Ukrainian Village” to the Farmer Alfalfa homage (in
sound if not literally) “Carol’s Burgers”. Though many
of the pieces move through a range of colors and
structures, the set does have a suite that should be
called out: dedicated to longtime Chicago jazz writer
Larry Kart, the pieces “Alone at the Brain”, “Jazz
Searching Self” and “It Felt as if Time had Stopped” are
a portrait of presence and history. The final movement
is absolutely gorgeous, limned by delicate woody
footfalls and Adasiewicz’ glassy rows and eddies that
recall Walt Dickerson in dreamlike, fluttering
aggression, closing in a wistfully funereal march.
Falzone is the sole reed voice in Daisy’s Vox
Arcana, a trio that also includes cellist/guitarist Fred
Lonberg-Holm. This is the group that most clearly
represents Daisy’s compositional acumen; as one might
infer, the compositions and improvisations inform one
another, thus exploring the continual process of crossbreeding
that occurs in the works’ development. Soft
Focus is the trio’s third disc and its eight pieces clock in
economically at a shade over a half-hour. Vox Arcana
finds Daisy at perhaps his most texturally rangy - in
addition to a standard kit, he employs a variety of
gongs, marimba and what sound like roto-toms and
tuned bongos. While slinky tone poems and chamber
studies are, in part, endemic to this trio’s music, that
doesn’t mean that opportunities to stretch don’t arise
- witness the toothy opener, “De Grote Olifant” and its
panoply of athletic rattles. Daisy has chosen his
compatriots perfectly, as both Falzone and Lonberg-
Holm are as rigorous in their compositional acumen as
they are in open improvisation and Daisy’s writing
might as well be theirs. It’s a fine tightrope walk that
Vox Arcana are testing and being ‘in the middle’ is
profoundly rewarding.
For more information, visit allosmusica.org and timdaisy.
wordpress.com. Klang is at Ibeam Brooklyn Mar. 15th-16th.
See Calendar.