Return of the Guitar Man - The New York City Jazz Record

Photo by Chris Lindhorst
32 October 2011 | THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORD
THE KEY IS IN THE WINDOW is an exploratory
meditative collaboration between guitarist BEN
MONDER and trumpet/Shakuhachi player AARON
SHRAGGE. Aaron plays soulful and modern melodies with
either Shakuhachi or Dragon Mouth trumpet. Tracks
featuring trumpet sound like an intimate jazz
collaboration, with memorable lines underpinned by
Ben’s lush chord voicings on guitar. Aaron’s mellow
and expressive tone on the trumpet gives the album
meditative qualities. Shakuhachi tracks such as
Upper Roslyn Lookout, Chosi and Kyorei provide timbral
contrast and less structured, more lucid melodies. Ben’s
guitar playing is rich and at times minimal, providing
compelling accompaniment.
“…defies expectation and avoids clichés as
it delves deeper into that satori place in your brain.” -Bill Milkowski, Jazz Times
“...the sounds created by these two world-class musicians takes the listener to
varying celestial moments of clarity and depth that one would not expect.
Shragge and Monder manage to paint musical imagery that transcends genre
and style...The Key is in the Window is definitely a recording to check out for those
who want to expand their ears musically and want to find something truly new
in the realm of improvised music.” - Marcos Rios, Guitar International
www.aaronshragge.com
Live at the Vortex, London
Parker/Wheeler/Dunmall/Levin/Edwards (Rare Music)
Sur Les Corps Des Klaxons
Le Goas/Wheeler/Chevallier/Buronfosse (Rewind)
One of Many Kenny Wheeler (CAMJazz)
by Gordon Marshall
Though known for his milder, often diatonic, work,
Canadian trumpeter Kenny Wheeler established much
of his earlier reputation with Britain’s demanding,
dissonant Spontaneous Music Ensemble (SME). Live at
the Vortex, London, from 2003, puts him back in
company with SME alumnus Evan Parker, along with
a trio of other veterans of the British free improvisation
scene: saxist Paul Dunmall, bassist John Edwards and
drummer Tony Levin. The outing has a sober,
businesslike tone, as if the artists were gathering at a
party to talk shop. At such a summit meeting, there
must be urgent matters to attend to and to listen is
often to feel on the outside of a conversation of a
gathering of insiders: here are heroes and pioneers,
experiencing a reunion of sorts - discussing concepts
beyond our comprehension. Free jazz always raises
the question of whether it is a clinical exhibition of
intellectualism or a raw outpouring of passion. But the
British non-idiomatic improvisers never gave up
passion for the sake of chilly academicism. In this
work it is rendered in the finely crafted details of the
dialogues.
The effort with drummer Olivier Le Goas, Sur Les
Corps Des Klaxons, includes guitarist David Chevalier
and bassist Marc Buronfosse for a democratically
inclined quartet giving equal hearing to free and
formal, to guitars and horns. It shows Wheeler with
the intellectual rigor inherited from the SME years, but
relaying it with new taste and appeal. Like much of his
work going back to his ECM days, this disc has a
mellow veneer but is more complex, with bitter and
spicy notes. It is an achievement of balance, a
reconciliation between his debts to the radical freedom
of the ‘60s and his own, more light and airy comfort
zone. This is an album with surprises too, including
the parade of rhythms and syncopation that leads up
to the hiphop/Bollywood feel of “Sunday Two” and
closing with the eerie, edgy bossa “Nonetheless”.
One of Many is a trio with pianist John Taylor and
bassist Steve Swallow. It is very reminiscent of
Wheeler’s early ECM works, such as Gnu High (1975),
but again, the contours are sharper now, bright and
even tropical sometimes, not the pervasive drab
mistiness of so much ‘70s ECM material. Wheeler is
always very much a weaver, always finding a way to
braid his melodic forays into the exploratory trains of
the other musicians, even here where the situation
makes him leader. Swallow’s bass travels into high
registers, the range of a guitar, taking full advantage of
Wheeler’s laissez-faire. Even Taylor, with his modal
explorations, often reminds one of Keith Jarrett,
another of Wheeler’s early constituents. Though his
range fascinates, it may be Wheeler’s softer side that
shows him at his best in the long run - informed by the
depth and complexity of the harsher tradition of
British free improvisation.
For more information, visit raremusicrecordings.co.uk,
myspace.com/olivierlegoasgravitations and camjazz.com.
The Festival of New Trumpet Music (FONT) honors Kenny
Wheeler at Jazz Standard Oct. 20th-23rd. See Calendar.