Michael Vlatkovich, Multitudes Telepathic

Jazz and poetry have made for a productive companionship over the years, from Langston Hughes to Amini Baraka to the AACM. So trombonist Michael Vlatkovich's Multitudes Telepathic (pfMentum 078) has precedent. On it we have the poetry recitation of Mark Weber against an open jazz framework.

There of course is no one way to do these things, but it must all come together in some way for it to work. Mark Weber's poetry seems suited to jazz accompaniment because his poetry is in the moment--about being there in some form of fashion, for better or worse. The open-form free jazz of Michael Vlatkovich has the same starting place, the there of where.

He and his trio of self, Clyde Reed, upright bass, and Dave Wayne, drums, are an open book and the music here gives us that creative openness to experience that goes well with the sort of Zen is-ness of Mark Weber's poems.

The trio makes some fine free music here, as one has come to expect from Vlatkovich and his ensemble. And Mark Weber's recitations sustain the need for imaginative words, for narratives that evoke and make the music something more than it would be on its own.

So we have something worthwhile here!