heart of gold - The New York City Jazz Record

Eponymous
Dans les arbres (ECM)
by Kurt Gottschalk
Dans les arbres is a quartet of apparent secrets.
They’re not committed to the complete obfuscation of
instrumental sound as so many, so compellingly, are in
the world of extended improvisational forms. Rather
they wear their voices on their sleeves, as it were, and
at the same time conjure some soundscapes neither
easily discerned nor dissected.
The lineup is conventional enough on paper.
French clarinetist Xavier Charles appears alongside a
trio of Norwegians: Ivar Grydeland (guitar and banjo),
Christian Wallumrød (piano) and Ingar Zach
(percussion). They could nearly be a small Dixie
ensemble, which they aren’t. Instead they hover in the
orbit of post-AMM sound art, with a crucial distinction
being that they still work as a band. While so often
what occurs in so-called “electro-acoustic
improvisation” is a (compelling) melding of voices,
Dans les arbres are at all times four distinct voices.
Which is where the trouble, compellingly, begins.
Playing at Issue Project Room Dec. 9th, they
sounded in part like a gong ensemble, with muted
electric guitar strings and dampened piano creating
decidedly percussive sounds while at the same time a
38 January 2011 | ALLABOUTJAZZ-NEW YORK
gong stood behind a large parade drum turned on its
side. Bows were applied to banjo strings and what
appeared to be light fixtures, setting a mournful cry
against the clarinet while a mallet pushed against the
drumhead sounded very much like a bowed bass viol.
On record they add the reedy drones of harmonica and
sruti box, hitting something that manages to be
epically minimalist by the two-thirds mark.
What they aren’t doing is making sounds of secret
origin. Rather they are concealing secret weapons.
Dans les arbres works with quiet grenades, lobbing
them gently into a pool of acoustic instrumentation.
The ripples are, reliably, compelling.
For more information, visit ecmrecords.com
Camera
Joe Morris
(ESP-Disk)
Creatures
Joe Morris/Luther Gray
(Not Two)
by Ken Waxman
Confidently inventive on these CDs, guitarist Joe
Morris demonstrates that he’s lost none of his facility
or individuality despite a decade also working as a
bassist. It’s hard to choose between these two releases,
recorded approximately one year apart.
While Creatures, a duo with drummer Luther
Gray, is a high-class examination of how many notable
improvisations can be produced by only two
musicians, it also suffers from its virtues. There are
only so many ways to voice strings and a drumkit.
Camera on the other hand adds the additional textures
- one is tempted to say perspective and contrast - that
are available with the addition of cellist Junko
Fujiwara Simons and violinist Katt Hernandez. The
lineup conjures up memories of similarly constituted
ensembles, from The Revolutionary Ensemble to the
String Trio of New York.
With all the tunes named with photographic
allusions, the quartet builds up to top-quality
portraiture on Camera’s final tracks, “Patterns on
Faces” and “Reflected Objects”. Benefiting from the
presence of four potential soloists, the first tune is
angled around a legato and tremolo cello lead,
accompanied by Gray’s muted pops and drags. The
latter piece’s duet of Hernandez and Morris moves
with enough complex yet unforced licks to suggest
what may have happened if Jim Hall at his most
adventurous had recorded with Leroy Jenkins at his
most traditional. Added is low-pitched shuffle bowing
from Simons and sharp licks from Morris and an
episode of rattled cymbals and thumped snares from
Gray that resembles a standard jazz drum break.
Simons’ two-handed bowing and plucking on
“Patterns on Faces” bonds with slurred fingering and
emphasized fills from Morris, as well as spicatto
pumps from Hernandez. With the three operating in
multiphonic counterpoint, the final theme variation
reaches its climax with intermittent string falters from
the violinist who, by not completing her licks, leaves
the ending purposely hanging.
Analogous stop-start strategies are avoided on
Creatures, since it appears that Morris is unwilling to
stop playing. It isn’t much of a hardship considering
that his soloing throughout is swift, diatonic and
unusually lyrical. At the same time Gray is one of the
least flamboyant percussionists, pacing himself with
light flams and drags. The two attain a significant
sound-meld on “Creature Proportion” as Morris’
multi-fingering story-telling runs sizzle alongside the
drummer’s rebounds, hammering tones and final
polyrhythmic paradiddles. The same unforced
lyricism is part of the defining “Creature Outlook”, as
Gray’s cymbal shudders, ratamacues and taps
intricately outline the guitarist’s taut, single-string
frails. Morris’ perfectly shaped tones play tag with the
drummer’s bounces and rim shots until the fleet
interaction brings the disc to a satisfying end.
Whether you prefer Morris and Gray in duo or
quartet form, each CD is an axiomatic example of the
guitarist’s - and the drummer’s - subtle art.
For more information, visit espdisk.com and nottwo.com
IN PRINT
At The Jazz Band Ball: Sixty Years on the Jazz Scene
by Nat Hentoff (University of California Press)
by Tom Greenland
To label Nat Hentoff a jazz ‘critic’ is slightly
misleading when you consider that he is one of the
music’s staunchest advocates, a veteran participant
who will respectfully decline to comment if he
doesn’t like what he hears. At The Jazz Band Ball is an
anthology of recent writings (dating from 2004)
primarily culled from JazzTimes and The Wall Street
Journal, along with other sources, including two
conversations from the Blue Note Jazz Club
Interview Series. Admitting that “the only thing I
play is the electric typewriter”, Hentoff is not so
much interested analyzing what he calls “the
process” (ie, the technique) of jazz as he is getting to
know the ‘who’ of jazz, avowing that he has learned
more about music in particular and life in general
from the artists themselves. Many times he cites the
players verbatim, often in pithy aphorisms that
capture the individual’s ethos: “It’s taken me much
of my life to learn what notes not to play.” (Dizzy
Gillespie); “Retire? To what?” (Duke Ellington) or,
“Music is your own experience, your thoughts, your
wisdom. If you don’t live it, it won’t come out of
your horn.” (Charlie Parker). Hentoff has taken such
observations to heart; they appear and reappear
throughout his writing like classic big band riffs.
Organized around broad themes such as Duke
Ellington’s legacy, music education, First
Amendment rights (a burning issue in Hentoff’s
other work) and jazz’ next generation, the book is a
mother-lode of rare nuggets: in Chapter 12 the
notoriously taciturn Thelonious Monk offers his
observations on the early bebop scene at Minton’s
Playhouse and on musical originality; in Chapter 21
Clark Terry discusses his experiences with Miles
Davis, Quincy Jones and Count Basie; Chapter 34
reveals that Willie “The Lion” Smith was bar
mitzvah’ed into the Jewish faith, eventually
becoming a chazzan (prayer singer) and Chapter 47
shows how Art Davis helped foment fairer orchestra
audition procedures when he sued the New York
Philharmonic for discrimination. Not literally a
‘critic’, Hentoff notes, “I’ve only written about
musicians whose music I liked and felt I could
understand.”
For more information, visit ucpress.edu