Volume 27 Issue 4 - February 2022
Gould's Wall -- Philip Akin's "breadcrumb trail; orchestras buying into hope; silver linings to the music theatre lockdown blues; Charlotte Siegel's watershed moments; Deep Wireless at 20; and guess who is Back in Focus. All this and more, now online for your reading pleasure.
Gould's Wall -- Philip Akin's "breadcrumb trail; orchestras buying into hope; silver linings to the music theatre lockdown blues; Charlotte Siegel's watershed moments; Deep Wireless at 20; and guess who is Back in Focus. All this and more, now online for your reading pleasure.
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arco bass line and fragmented slurs and slides from the saxophonist<br />
swirl through multiphonic vibrations to eventual reed/keyboard<br />
harmony. Each composition is geared to individual quartet members’<br />
skills, with tracks fully defined when all kick in after an individual’s<br />
introduction. Distinctive motifs like the drummer’s sophisticated<br />
slapping, the bassist’s double-stroking ostinatos, the reedist’s outputting<br />
of gentle or strained tones and piano motifs that can be delicately<br />
cooperative or contrapuntally challenging, are all part of the mix. It<br />
also means that Sassoon has created a spectrum of group music that<br />
highlights her writing skill.<br />
If Sassoon had to cross the Channel to establish<br />
herself in Berlin, other Berlin improvisers<br />
come from even farther afield.<br />
Vibraphonist Emilio Gordoa is Mexican and<br />
the cooperative GRIFF trio (Inexhaustible<br />
Editions ie G25 emiliogordoa.com) features<br />
Danish bassist Adam Pultz Melbye who also<br />
resides in Berlin and Austrian pianist Ingrid<br />
Schmoliner, who so far, still lives in Vienna.<br />
With the pianist mostly dedicated to plucking, pinching or stoppering<br />
the instrument’s internal strings and Gordoa clanking, rasping or<br />
slapping his instrument’s metal bars, the harmonies produced are, in<br />
the main, percussive. Currents of sound refract among all three when<br />
the bassist adds string pops so that timbres become threatening rather<br />
than tuneful. Yet when bell-pealing-like vibraphone tones and<br />
dynamic keyboard patterning intersect, reflective lyricism is also<br />
present. Making effective use of silences – there’s no sound on the<br />
concluding Moss Rock until keyboard chops and vibe reverb are heard<br />
two minutes in and the exposition still proceeds with many pauses<br />
– the unique set-up also infers extended sound colours. This occurs<br />
when Schmoliner’s assembly line of echoes and clinks meets up with<br />
equivalent patterning from vibe reverb with the motor switched off.<br />
While some sequences are taken staccato and allegro, coordination is<br />
most notable on Bell Skin, as a polyrhythmic climax is attained by<br />
blending metal bar thwacks, double bass string buzzing and prepared<br />
piano string shakes and clatters, completed by a coda of paced ringing<br />
of single vibraphone notes.<br />
Another Berlin-based international group<br />
is the Takatsuki Trio of Finnish bassist<br />
Antti Virtaranta, German string player<br />
Joshua Weitzel and Japanese pianist Rieko<br />
Okuda. On At KühlSpot (577 Records 5874<br />
577records.com) the trio is joined by<br />
Berlin alto saxophonist Silke Eberhard for<br />
a single, almost 39-minute improvisation.<br />
Without needing a percussion instrument, Virtaranta’s authoritative<br />
string pulse and Weitzel’s creation of dobro-like clanks from<br />
the three-string shamisen or authoritative guitar strums, provide<br />
enough rhythmic frails to back the pianist’s metronomic rumbles<br />
and staccato stabs as well as the saxophonist’s inventive trills, squalls<br />
and flutters. With bass strokes keeping the exposition linear, Okuda<br />
has latitude to circle in and out of supplemental melodies and occasionally<br />
strum internal strings. Meanwhile Eberhard’s theme reconstitution<br />
sometimes takes the form of aviary peeps, flutter tonguing<br />
or altissimo split tones. At points these unroll in one direction as<br />
the pianist moves in another. With concise snatches of reed lyricism<br />
sometimes bubbling to the surface, uncommon connections<br />
are made between them and bass-emphasized piano pulses.<br />
Doubling the tempo at the halfway point with galloping piano lines<br />
and crammed reed note spewing, variations solidify and return to<br />
the initial theme. Timbres from each quartet member then subtly<br />
combine for a formal ending signified by a thick double bass thump<br />
and guitar clanks.<br />
Not all Berlin improvising is acoustic as Das Kondensat 2 (Why Play<br />
Jazz WPJ 057 whyplayjazz.com) shows. Created by three veteran<br />
German players, who now live in Berlin, Gebhard Ullmann soprano<br />
and tenor saxophones, looper and sampler; Oliver Potratz, electric<br />
bass, bass synthesizer and analog effects;<br />
and Eric Schaefer with drums and modular<br />
synthesizer, multiply the number of sound<br />
sources available. During 2’s 11 tracks, the<br />
trio members are able to straddle the<br />
boundaries among solid beats, adept electronica<br />
and free improvisation. While a<br />
couple of the tracks vibrate with atmospheric<br />
buzzes where voltage overlay leads<br />
to crossover shakes, alliances with tougher material is evident from<br />
Pendulum, the second track, on. As the bassist and drummer<br />
actualize a tough funk beat with string buzzes and solid cymbal taps,<br />
the saxophonist barks and bites wavering reed elaborations as<br />
circular tongue fluttering and irregular vibrations validate a link to<br />
energy music. That connection is proven on the separated I Was Born<br />
in Cleveland, Ohio (Part 1) and I Was Born in Cleveland, Ohio<br />
(Part 2), where the voice of tenor saxophonist Albert Ayler, the Ohio<br />
city’s most famous free jazzer, introduces the music and is heard<br />
faintly in the background as Ullmann’s tenor saxophone spews a<br />
variety of altissimo screams, triple tonguing and choked vibrations,<br />
while the others create a churning backbeat. Although (Part 2) adds<br />
higher-pitched reed squeaks and programmed wiggles beside<br />
percussion snaps, a calmer interlude on (Part 1) references Ayler’s<br />
spiritual side. Most of the other tunes migrate to a sophisticated form<br />
of fusion with designated bass thumb pops and fuzztones and a<br />
resonating backbeat. Yet Schaefer’s skill at switching to Latin<br />
rhythms or propelling tunes with only drum stick whacks, plus<br />
Potratz’s single string emphasis and broken chord advances negate<br />
any resemblance to heavy metal. Similarly, while the band’s use of<br />
swirling electronics adds a layer of oscillating textures that thicken<br />
the narratives, Ullman’s insertions of nasal slurs, tone flutters, whistles<br />
and squeaks roughen the expositions enough to confirm the<br />
non-simplicity of the playing and writing.<br />
While improvisers keep arriving, Berlin has<br />
been attracting musicians from elsewhere<br />
for decades. But now players who are more<br />
recent settlers get to exchange ideas with<br />
older residents who they may formerly have<br />
only known by reputation, even if they’re<br />
from the same country. That’s the situation<br />
on Swinging at Topsi’s (Astral Spirits<br />
AS 176 astralspirits.bandcamp.com) which<br />
assembles three Swedish improvisers. One of the pioneers of free<br />
jazz, drummer Sven-Åke Johansson has been a Berliner since 1968.<br />
Bassist Joel Grip made the move early in this century; while guitarist<br />
Niklas Fite, who is also 52 years younger than Johansson, was only<br />
visiting. Transparently descriptive, the CD title reflects exactly what<br />
transpired on this club date. As a coda to their extended improvisations,<br />
the trio members take on two familiar standards in full, lilting<br />
swing-era mode with Johansson vocalizing on Isn’t It Romantic and<br />
Out Of Nowhere. Jumping forward eight decades, the group adapts<br />
the flow that comes from consistent rhythm guitar strums, forceful<br />
double bass thumps and subtle percussion chromaticism to make<br />
the two extended improvisations cadence carefully as well as highlight<br />
exploration. Resounding drum rattles and cymbal swishes allow<br />
Grip to explore below-the-bridge thwacks when he isn’t timekeeping<br />
and Fite to insert unexpected frails and runs when he isn’t fastened<br />
on a rhythmic function with flat top twanging. Interestingly, Set 1 is<br />
tougher and livelier than the second one, as the guitar moves between<br />
spidery and solid comping and the percussionist alternating between<br />
barely-there drum top rubs and sudden rumbling explosions. While<br />
he has his share of lyrical pulses and lacerating string set probes, Grip<br />
maintains the pulse that logically bonds the improvisations and bleeds<br />
their textures into those of the subsequent pop ditties.<br />
Over the years Berlin has been the centre of many, mostly political<br />
situations that have drawn it in many directions. The direction it has<br />
established now though is as a haven for improvised music.<br />
56 | <strong>February</strong> <strong>2022</strong> thewholenote.com