Volume 24 Issue 4 - December 2018 / January 2019

Jovićević lived in Toronto from 2006 to 2009,
while receiving her MA in composition at
York University, recording with local players
and sampling different musical currents
to use in her own work. However this CD,
while proficient musically doesn’t settle on a
consistent genre.
With an unusual lineup (violin, viola,
cello, bassoon, percussion and her own saxophones,
bass clarinet, spacedrum and vocals),
the seven tracks bounce among animated
string-oriented tremolo showcases, Balkantinged
vocal laments, spacey voice, string and
reed elaboration, plus instrumental virtuosity
that zips, from near-atonal to nearsmooth
jazz.
Ram Run through the Veins, the CD’s
lengthiest track, defines the conundrum in
miniature. Beginning as an exercise in freeform
saxophone squeals and whistles, backed
by a sardonic march conveyed by splash
cymbals, it settles down to become a quasiballad
with triple-stropping strings and
breathy English vocalizing accompanied by a
bassoon obbligato. Other tracks such as Speak
Loud My Inner Child show off Jovićević’s
unaccompanied saxophone prowess. Still
others like Rising Barefoot Ballad and Silver
Winds of a Thousand Petals create closeknit
harmonies which express such intense
emotionalism that either could be part of the
formal Romantic canon.
Flow Vertical is a top-flight demonstration
of what Jovićević can do as a composer
and performer. But settling on one consistent
narrative would better define her ideas.
Ken Waxman
You Have Options
François Houle; Alexander Hawkins; Harris
Eisenstadt
Songlines SGL1628-2 (songlines.com)
!!
Ken Pickering,
who recently passed
away from cancer,
was co-founder
and artistic director
of the Vancouver
International Jazz
Festival. For over
three decades he
created a singular and still-growing contribution
to Canadian improvised music by regularly
assembling ad hoc groups matching
Vancouver musicians with their international
counterparts. Among his achievements was
this stellar assembly of Vancouver clarinetist
François Houle, English pianist Alexander
Hawkins and Toronto-born, US-resident,
drummer Harris Eisenstadt. First matched
in 2014, the three reunited during the 2016
festival and went into the recording studio.
This resulting CD, an essay in chamber jazz
that explores the trio’s own fresh compositions
and a few from some stellar composers,
is dedicated to Pickering’s memory.
The group’s lyric potential is apparent
first on Hawkins’ opening Clue and Steve
Lacy’s Art. There’s a rich, warm woodiness
to Houle’s clarinet and it’s admirably
matched with Hawkins’ liquid keyboard and
Eisenstadt’s subtly propulsive drumming.
Houle’s edgy Run Riot and Eisenstadt’s You
Have Options. I Have a Lawyer will momentarily
break the spell, but it’s the group’s
reflective depths that define the CD: Houle’s
gently spiralling, impassioned lines on The
Pitts; the group’s insistently coiling phrases
on the modal Prayer and the very light, traditional
blues of Advice.
The group’s breadth is evidenced by a free
interpretation of Charles Ives’ Largo, while
Andrew Hill’s Dusk, sometimes serene, sometimes
gently animated, provides a fitting
conclusion, from Houle’s a cappella introduction
to its shimmering conclusion.
Stuart Broomer
tse
Cyril Bondi; Pierre-Yves Martel; Christoph
Schiller
Another Timbre at123 (anothertimbre.com)
!!
Redefining
period instruments,
Montreal viola da
gamba, harmonica
and pitch pipes
player Pierre-Yves
Martel joins two
musicians from
Geneva, Cyril Bondi
on Indian harmonium, objects and pitch
pipes plus spinet specialist Christoph Schiller,
to create five microtonal improvisations that
amplify the in-the-moment concept that tse
(which means “here” in a mountain dialect
spoken near Geneva) only suggests.
Based around cycles of tremolo drones from
the harmonium, the moody performances
are narrow but nuanced, since the repetitive
outpouring is periodically disrupted
by concentrated string plinks or stabs. The
extended rustles that make up a track like
III have their delicacy challenged when
swelling harmonica puffs and concentrated
wave-form-like buzzes clamorously
dominate the sound field, until that moment
when the organ-like extensions give way to
string twangs until both expositions dissolve
into silence. On other tracks, the group’s
minimalist sways and squirms demonstrate
similar contradictions and resolutions, as
when shrill whistles, peeps, tinkling bells and
unexpected reed-like tones create parallel
motifs to the underlying ostinato, and then
combine for a satisfying flat-line conclusion.
More than background sounds, but never
powerful enough to be obnoxiously upfront,
the fascination in tse’s presence is how these
sounds, designed with understated, overlapping
restrictions, continue to hold aural
interest during the evolution of each track.
Ken Waxman
Contemporary Chaos Practices
Ingrid Laubrock
Intakt 314 (intaktrec.ch)
!!
While third
stream (the merger
of jazz and classical
music) is rarely
heard of these
days, it’s far more
developed than in
its 1950s heyday.
Saxophonist/
composer Ingrid Laubrock here presents two
pieces integrating written and improvised
passages for a 34-piece orchestra and four
featured soloists: Laubrock herself, guitarist
Mary Halvorson, trumpeter Nate Wooley and
pianist Kris Davis, among the most distinguished
international improvisers of a generation
now in its late-30s and 40s. The orchestra
of New York freelancers negotiates the
complex scores – Eric Wubbels conducts the
written passages, Taylor Ho Bynum (like most
of the soloists a close associate of Anthony
Braxton) conducts the improvised – with a
necessary combination of precision, energy
and vision.
Inspired by the models and methods
of Ligeti, Xenakis and Braxton, Laubrock
develops new synergies with her mixed
palette. The first two movements of the
title work erupt with the overlapping energies
of soloists (most notably Halvorson’s
very electronic guitar) and ensemble, while
the third and fourth expand the breadth of
the orchestral dimension. The single-movement
Vogelfrei (Outlaw) adds eight voices
and mixes light and sombre elements as it
develops a dialogue between notated and
improvised orchestral passages, at times
creating an almost concerto-like setting for
Davis’ prominent piano.
Along with other recent works like
Christopher Fox’s Topophony (with John
Butcher and Axel Dörner) and Roscoe
Mitchell’s Ride the Wind (with the Montreal-
Toronto Art Orchestra), this represents a
significant new development in the integration
of scored and improvised music.
Stuart Broomer
Miki
Miki Yamanaka; Bill Stewart; Steve Nelson;
Orlando le Fleming
Cellar Live CL020718 (cellarlive.com)
! ! Miki is the debut
recording from the
Kobe-born, New
York-based pianist
Miki Yamanaka.
Recorded in New
York and released
on Vancouver’s
Cellar Live Records,
Miki features eight originals – all written by
Yamanaka, most with food-related titles –
and two covers, For All We Know and Monk’s
94 | December 2018 / January 2019 thewholenote.com