Connie Crothers Quartet, Deep Friendship

Connie Crothers has been making seminal new/avant jazz for many decades. And there is no excuse if she doesn't always get the recognition in the press she so deserves. It's all laid out in the recordings and you can catch her live in and around the city (New York).

She has a new album out that, after some quite exciting and engaging duets with some brilliant players, returns to her classic quartet. They played a set at the Jazz Room, William Paterson University in NJ, in 2010. Fortunately it was well recorded and the results are for us to appreciate in Deep Friendship (New Artists 1058).

This is the band best known for its freebop demeanor. That means that the music is outside the mainstream but has deep bop roots. Long-time Crothers associate Richard Tabnik blazes on alto sax. Even longer-time band member Roger Mancuso plays a loosely swinging set of drums. And Ken Filiano, a bassist known and appreciated for his work with Connie and others as well, is a key part as he has been for a while.

So why is this something to hear? It's some intricately hip after-bop numbers--three by Connie and two by Richard. They have been done before on earlier albums, but that in jazz just means they are serving as the springboard for a fresh improvisatory outlook, which is as true of this group as it is of any.

Richard blazes as a relative of Bird who has built his own nest--in other words, post-Bird. Ken walks beautifully and plays some excellent solos, too. Roger kicks out the jams both in time and in solo.

But I find myself on this album especially listening to what Connie is doing. When she comps the harmonies are thickened, sometimes to the point that they are flat-out clusters of dissonance and then, no, you get your bearings with some very rootsy chordal voicings and all in a flow that shows the deep, deep roots she has in the tradition but how much she pushes that tradition to the edge. That is what good freebop should do but often doesn't quite. With Ms. Crothers and the band they do so without fail. And Connie's solos show that too only perhaps even more so.

No one plays like this out there except Connie. Others may get in that zone but she is way ahead of them all when it comes to extensions and transformations of what has gone before.

Everything clicks on Deep Friendship. Connie shows us that she is at the top of the game. So do yourself a favor and dig in to this one! My highest recommendation for this one--and Matthew Shipp's from the other day. For the piano these are two sides to a brilliant coin. Years from now people are going to be kicking themselves saying, "why didn't I get with this music sooner?" Now is the time.

Michael Bisio Matthew Shipp Duo, Floating Ice

Not everybody can be at the top. Among the very best of the improvisers today. The most creative and inventive. The most consistent. Michael Bisio, acoustic bass, and Matthew Shipp, piano, belong to the group of those very few, special players active in avant improvisational music, what is often called "free jazz." But the category doesn't mean anything when they play. Because they are playing what they hear and feel, not "category music." They have been playing together in a trio with drummer Whit Dickey for a couple of years now, isn't it? And now they pair down to a duo for some adventurous music on the about-to-be-released Floating Ice (Relative Pitch 1005).

It's the two of them thrusting the music forward as they continue to bring the history of the style to bear as reference and jumping off points. So you'll hear some themes that bounce and bop like Monk meets Nichols, references to the ragtime era, and other pre-epochal glances.

And throughout this disk, as is apparent in all they do lately, there is improvising of high originality. Michael is a thoughtful bass tornado whether playing pizzicato or arco, and brings deep feeling and deeply charged energy into the mix. He plays lines that you don't expect, pretty much all the time. Matthew is a lickless pianist. He creates out of a large imaginative palette of musical sounds and he virtually plays what he hears one-on-one with the imagination of it. So you hear him in all his immediacy, in all his various creative moods and channelings of the music and what it means to him.

The two together as a duo do not disappoint. But then I don't believe anything either has done in the last decade has let me down in any way. They play music with the structure and heft of composition, but it's spontaneous. That is remarkable.

These are two at the top of the era and they behave like it on this wonderful disk. It's beyond category. Avant, sure. But essential no matter what you call it. Piano-bass duets? Call it that. This is our music today and they are making some of the best!

David Haney Quartet, Avenue of the Americas

Pianist David Haney (now the chief force behind Cadence Magazine) comes up with one of his more unpredictable efforts on the recently released Avenue of the Americas (CIMP 386), which was recorded in 2008. It's a little different in that it teams up Haney with Doug Webb (tenor) and Mat Marucci (drums), the latter a tandem that has recorded a number of albums for the CIMP family of labels in a zone that's a little more straight-ahead than what David does. They are joined by Jorge Hernaez on bass.

Bob Rusch describes in the liners a series of logistical disasters that surrounded this date. It is in some ways a miracle that the music happened at all under the circumstances. But you can read those notes yourself so I will not go into detail.

Combining the near misses of getting it all together with the stylistic synergies and common-ground groping of the band members during the date leads to what turns out to be quite interesting results. Oft times Doug Webb plays in a post-Trane free/post-bop mode while David gets free post-Cecilian jabs from his piano. Jorge's bass often walks and Mat Marucci straddles the space between freetime and swingtime.

Mostly it hangs together with a frisson all its own. Honestly for the first listen I didn't quite get where it was going. Subsequent hearings put it together in my mind. There's not as much David Haney piano as you might expect but what there is keeps your attention and Doug Webb most certainly gets on a mainstem and stays there.

It's an album you have to listen to a few times. But then you are rewarded.

The Ames Room, "Bird Dies"

Bird Dies (Clean Feed 231) is a rather cheeky name for a 45-minute continuous improvisation by the alto sax-bass-drums trio The Ames Room. But it does give notice that the music contained on this CD is most definitely beyond bop. Jean Luc Guionnet, Clayton Thomas and Will Guthrie on alto, bass and drums, respectively, from the beginning lock into a tumbling, jabbing, continuously heated improvisation that has something of the phrasing of Trane's "Sunship" to it. The trio manages to do that with their own personalities to the forefront however.

Guionnet's alto is unrelenting in its continual short burst of phrases. working through and developing his solo through repetition, variation and change. The rhythm team follow each their own rolling and thrusting variations. Combine the three over time and you have the interplay that puts this performance in its own special place. The overall dynamic is freedom within a straight-eighth note feel, rather than a triplet-oriented swing implication.

It's very intense. It might drive grandma out of the room. If you are up for that you'll get plenty of it on Bird Dies!

Noah Kaplan Quartet, Descendants

Tenor saxist Noah Kaplan graduated from the New England Conservatory, where he quite obviously studied with the late Joe Manieri, and now emerges with an interesting album centering on his quartet, Descendants (HatOLOGY 688). It's a freewheeling avant date with very nice collective and individual moments from Joe Morris, guitar, Giacomo Merega, electric bass, Jason Nazary, drums and of course Kaplan.

I found I first had to get used to Noah's playing style, which uses glissandos and quarter tones along with bursts of more "conventional" avant phrasing. It's ultimately well worth hearing what he does here, though it takes a while to get into. Joe Morris's chromatic atonality is well suited as a countervoice to Kaplan and he sounds quite nice on this session, as always. Merega and Nazary open things up quite a bit in the free domain and so give the front line the ultimate flexibility to weave their spells.

It takes a few listens to get acclimated. Then, if you are like me, you dig it.

Vinny Golia Quartet, Take Your Time

Vinny Golia has for 30 years give-or-take created vibrant uncompromising jazz that bears his distinctive waterprint. That he is very much alive and well is quite apparent on the 2007 recording just now coming out: Take Your Time (Relative Pitch 1003).

It's a quartet of fine players--Vinny on tenor, alto and soprano, Bobby Bradford on cornet, Ken Filano on bass, and Alex Cline on drums.

This one is remarkable for the Golia-Bradford interactions, the interaction of the two with Cline and Filiano, and the latter with themselves.

It is an appealing straightforwardly "new thing" date, with heads and plenty of space for the soloists. Bradford sounds his effective self; Vinny moves to his own inner voice, original all the way, and the Filiano-Cline combination catapults the music ever upwards.

Is this album a huge revelation and the best thing Maestro Golia has ever done? No. But it IS an excellently realized, unpretentious meeting of four accomplished improvisational masters, who by being themselves, by playing with soul and fire, by their candor and concentration, give you a lively set of new jazz.

And that's what it is all about. Part of it anyway.

Acoustic Reign Project, "Arc"

The Acoustic Reign Project came out with their first CD in 2003. They return with a new recording entitled Arc (Sol Disk 1102) and it brings nearly an hour of good sounds into your life.

The band is a nice mix of free improvisers: Jim Knodle, trumpet, Brian Kent, tenor, Reuben Radding, contrabass, Roger Fisher, guitar (on the final piece) and Jack Gold-Molina on drums. They rip through five numbers, tending toward the collective improvisational stance, broken into different groupings and cross-dialogues throughout. These work well and nobody is a stylistic stand-in for some iconic forebearer. They are themselves and what that is works effectively as a unit. The rhythm team of Radding and Gold-Molina lay a plastically solid foundation for the front line while soloing well themselves and the front line has good ideas that do not suffer in their execution.

It's a very solid go-round. Enthusiasts of the free-avant jazz avenues will find this a satisfying listen. One hopes we won't have to wait as long for the third. This second album establishes the need for more!

Kali Z. Fasteau, Animal Grace, 2010

There is one thing about Kali Z. Fasteau's music of which you can be sure. She cannot be easily pigeonholed into a single stylistic category. Her music has free elements, world elements and her own expressive elements that set her apart. Plus she chooses wisely and carefully the artists she collaborates with on any given recording.

Today's CD is a great example of all this. Animal Grace (Flying Note 9014) combines highlights from two live sessions. The first, "Live in Harlem" finds Kali on the piano, mizmar, nai flute, voice, violin and soprano sax, in tandem with drumming legend Louis Moholo-Moholo.

There is a dynamic interaction going on, Kali playing some very nice post-Trane piano against Louis's recognizably distinct free drumming, followed by the echoed nai flute and more space for Louis. Kali uses a signal splitter in the next segment, enabling her to sing chords. A violin excursion follows, then a strong soprano-drum duet to close off the set. Moholo's attentive surges of drums give Kali a great sounding board to play off against, and in the piano and soprano segments she shines particularly brightly.

The second segment, "Live in the Alps," gives Kali a larger group to work with: Bobby Few on piano, Wayne Dockery on bass, and Steve McCraven on drums. Here Kali again shines on soprano and nai, as well as split-signal voice, mizmar, sanza and drums. It's the segments where Few does his inimitable thing, the rhythm section cooks/explodes and Kali gives forth with post-Trane sopranoisms that especially captivate. But it is captivating music all around thanks to all concerned. Kali and Bobby Few stand out the most consistently, not surprisingly, in exciting ways.

Suffice to say that this is an outing well worth your listening time. While it's not easy to pin Kali Fasteau down, it is easy to like her brand of freedom. This is a very good place to hear it.

Francois Carrier-Michel Lambert-Alexey Lapin, All Out, 2011

All Out (FMR 321-0911) is just that. It's the free trio of Francois Carrier (alto), Michel Lambert (drums) and Alexy Lapin (piano) going at it full tilt. It's all about the notes, the flow, the intensity of inspired expression.

Francois sounds especially on top of it for this date. He plays an unending flurry of very together note-ing, spurred on by some excellent Alexey Lapin piano and the always lucid drums of Michel Lambert.

It's seventy-some-odd minutes of great free jazz. Carrier is at the top of his game and the trio is rather remarkably going All Out. Needless to say you really should hear it.

David Arner, Solo Piano, Spontaneous Compositions, 1997-2001

David Arner is a special sort of new jazz, avant pianist, in that he has absorbed the jazz piano tradition and the innovators in that idiom over the years, has internalized the essence of that music, and emerged with a multi-dimensional take on the possibilities of going forward with the right sort of baggage in hand.

A good place to hear the multiple stylistic personalities of Maestro Arner is on the Dogstar CD release Solo Piano (Dogstar 0209), a seven-segment set composed of various live and studio performances dating from 1997 through 2001. There's post-Taylorian turbulence, inside-the-piano cosmicality and abstract angularity, delicate expressivity with child-like immediacy, bluesy testifying, and somber grandeur. It's a musically rich testimonial on David Arner the wide ranging pianist and fertile inventive musical thinker, Arner the structured improviser, the thoughtfully expressive spontaneous composer.

Excellent solo piano fare.

Remi Alvarez Quartet Live at the Vision Festival, 2011

New York's annual Vision Festival gathers together some of the very best new jazz artists for a week-long festival that once and (one hopes) for all realizes Charles Mingus's idea of putting forth an east coast festival that does for the disestablishmentarians what Newport every summer does for the main(stream) garde of the music. The Vision Fest is a place not to hear the usual names of conventional jazzdom, but rather those adventuous artists who are carving a path through the rock-cragged present to a new future of the music.

So when the Remi Alvarez Quartet took the stage last year, they followed in the footsteps of the innovators who have gone before. The CDR/download album Live at the Vision Festival 2011 (Reconstrukt) makes clear to us (or me anyway) that they most certainly belonged there.

It's Remi on tenor and flute, Dom Minasi on guitar, Ken Filiano on contrabass and Michael T.A. Thompson on drums for a 40-minute set that sparkles and bristles with energy and invention. Maestro Alvarez has a great, slighty dark tone on the tenor and a bright flute sonority. He gives forth with post-Riverian-Aylerian chromatics that flow soulfully and logically. Dom brings texture and harmonically implied color into the musical palette of the group, suggesting tone-moods, expanding the backdrop of sound washes and freeing the music to flow into uncharted territory. Ken Filiano does much the same in ways in which he is well known to excel. Both Dom and Ken provide pitched counterpoint and solo energies that fit well into the proceedings. Drummer Michael T.A. Thompson frees the time and contributes well executed and inventive sound clusters from his set.

The sum total is some lively rebel music for a summer's gathering, a well-recorded high point of the year's festival. Grab it and you'll have something good to happily experience all year 'round.

Joe McPhee/Michael Zerang, Creole Gardens (A New Orleans Suite)

It has now been well over 50 years since Ornette Coleman recorded his classic Free Jazz date. The music of open improvisation continues to thrive, as it has steadily marched forward through the rein of nine US Presidents (one of course currently ongoing), the rising and fading of countless ephemeral fads, wars, recessions, moon landings, voodoo economics, the leveraged buyout, disco and the rise and fall of CB radio. So why is it still controversial? The answer to that is complex, and the dumbing down of the cultural terrain no doubt plays a part.

So we press on, leaving aside for now the question of the reception of cultural legacies over time.

One of the scene's most consistent innovators in open improvisation is Joe McPhee. He has held forth for many years as master of tenor, alto, soprano and trumpet, a member of Trio X, a bandleader of stature, a player of striking creativity and inventiveness, a composer of both instant and considered form.

In September of 2009 he and drummer Michael Zerang played a live duo concert at the BIG TOP in New Orleans. Fortunately the recording machines were rolling. We now have the results of that gig in the form of a newly released CD/LP Creole Gardens (A New Orleans Suite) (No Business NBCD32). The music is dedicated to NOLA legend, master drummer Alvin Fielder.

The music is in the form of a continuous hour of creative improvisation, McPhee going to pocket trumpet and alto sax, Michael Zerang concentrating on his drum kit. The result is some genuine music of adventure. Echoes of NOLA's past can be heard as an understated and implied backdrop, but primarily this is spontaneous interaction of an advanced sort. Michael Zerang is limber and articulate, freely creating timeless figuration or dropping into various loose grooves. Joe McPhee generally builds each section around melodic phrases that he uses as springboards to variations and excursions of pure discursive soul.

Hey, this is one very nice set. Recommended.

Jason Adasiewicz's Sun Rooms, "Spacer," A Fine Trio Outing From A Vibes Master

Jason Adasiewicz, in his many appear- ances in advanced Chicago lineups and his previous trio effort, has established his credentials as a most-promising cutting-edge vibist for today. With the latest trio effort from his Sun Rooms outfit, Spacer (Delmark 2012), he moves beyond the promising to the realized. The trio of Jason, Nate McBride on bass and Mike Reed, drums, presents a very swinging set of mostly Adasiewicz originals.

The group interplay is first rate, the compositional vehicles forward moving and open-ended, the performances satisfying and classical-modern. There is something of the early Bobby Hutcherson in there, but Jason takes it further into an orchestral fullness of his own. He makes good use of the sustain pedal as in the previous trio outing, but this time he zeros in on the linear creativity which was so important an element of his presence in the larger ensembles he has been a part of.

McBride and Reed propel in classic new thing ways, with their own take on the open form that brings this trio into the 21st century.

So there you have it, model performances, innovation, swinging looseness, and open-form improvisational prowess that is anything but formulaic. We see. We hear. We dig. And thanks, Sun Rooms, for the musical joy and brightness you bring to our ears.

Szilard Mezel Wind Quartet, "Innen:" More Chamber Jazz From an Innovative Ensemble

The Szilard Mezel Wind Quartet have made a number of very interesting albums over the last several years. The latest is Innen (Ayler 122) and it is one of their very best. The somewhat unusual instrumentation of viola (Szilard Mezel), alto sax, bass clarient, clarinet (Bogdan Rankovic), trombone (Branislav Aksin), and tuba (Kornel Papista) gives the group an unusual sound. As in previous outings the compositions are by Mezel. Some of the earlier releases tended to have a dark sound color, partly because the instrumentation lends itself to this, partly because of the tenor of Mezel's compositions during that period. There was some excellent music but some of it was an acquired taste.

For the new album the sound palette is a bit brighter, but no less distinctive for that. All four artists interpret and phrase the pre-planned passages with a very worthy attention to ensemble blend and they can and do improvise in ways that extend and enhance the feel and mood of the composition at hand. There are seemingly totally free improvisational sections too which are handled well and offset the written sections nicely.

This is chamber jazz of a high order with inventive writing and an almost art-deco-for-today stance. The music can be ornate at times, straightforwardly plain other times, but all with a kind of modern timelessness. It is music of our era but resonates with the last 100 years and the sort of innovative ensemble writing of Milhaud and Weill without the timeworn period jazz flavor. But one would not mistake Mezel's writing for those earlier composers because it has its unique sound and very contemporary flavor. The improvisations are somewhat free-avant as well and that brings the music squarely into the new jazz camp.

This is one of those recordings that needs to be heard several times before the memory of recognition and familiarity assures the listener that there is a great deal to this music. Mezel does important work and he seems to be growing in his handling of the flow of ideas and their meaningful quality. The ensemble is one-of-a-kind as well.

I've read criticisms of critics who seem to like everything they review. Is it disingenuous? In my case at any rate I tend to review what I like. Who wants to read that a CD by someone you don't know is not that great? Well now, did you have any intention of getting it? Probably not. So I'll cover music/artists in my reviews that may not be perfect but have something or many things about them that seem worth experiencing, or they may raise issues about the music scene today and how it is evolving. Or they may simply be great.

Innen may not be quite in the "great" category. The Szilard Mezel Wind Quartet is making music that is provocative and memorable, however. And that's a great thing. This one will get you thinking and listening.

Motif, "Art Transplant:" Avant Jazz Quintet

Sometimes I am unfamiliar with a group, don't quite know what to expect, and it takes me a few listens to get acclimated. Like with Motif and their Art Transplant (Clean Feed 225).

The CD starts out with a minute or so of quiet air-through-instrument noises and then launches into the first composition, all except one of these written by contrabassist Ole Morten Vagan, who plays a forward role in the album as a bassist with style, imagination and melodic front-line aspirations. Axel Dorner handles the trumpet with some panache. Judging from the title billing ("with...") and the liner blurb he is a guest on this date. Atle Nemo does some good work on tenor sax and, for one cut, bass clarinet. Pianist Havard Wiik, who we favorably encountered several days ago on the Side A trio session with Ken Vandermark and Chad Taylor, is firmly planted at the center of the proceedings on piano in a role that has something of Andrew Hill's harmonic-melodic feel to it. Hakon Mjaset Johansen drives loosely on drums.

This is a date the sneaks up on you. The compositions are subtle and filled with some nice twists and turns. The improvisations are avant-melodic, new thing chromatics that expand the tonality to the edge and then bring it back for a moment, only to stray to the edge again. All four melody instruments do something worth hearing, and the drums are charged and give the forward momentum a kick as needed.

By the fourth listen I knew that this had something to it. If you like a freely articulated date with some interesting compositional underpinnings, with an overall thrust not unlike Andrew Hill's later Blue Notes, this one will take care of your needs and give you pleasure. It's another one of those Clean Feed sleepers. And it will wake you up. A good go of it!

Side A, "A New Margin": Vandermark, Wiik, Taylor Get it Going

Side A? A trio of Ken Vandermark, reeds, Havard Wiik, piano, Chad Taylor, drums. Their A New Margin (Clean Feed 235) seems like the right combination of inspired improvisation, appropriate and memorable composition, and collective spark.

The compositional assignments are equally divided among the three, which makes sense since Ken and Chad do good work, and it turns out Havard does too.

"Boxer" is a fitting and stirring beginning with a sort of modified ostinato that is in a lineage to Dolphy's "Hat and Beard". Ken sounds like he is on baritone for this (and indeed for others as well, though the album jacket credits him as playing tenor and clarinet only) and he and Chad do some lively improvising. "What Is Is" switches to another interesting ostinato, and they groove on in a free rock zone, taking it out.

"Trued Right" has a chordal-melodic line in the piano that swings along well with the addition of Chad's drums. Ken's clarinet puts forth some goodly improvs.

That's a sample of what you hear. It is not all ostinato-based. There are balladic outnesses, postboppishness and some pointilistic, whole group improv phrasings too, among other things. Chad Taylor comes through with the excellent drumming he is known for. He can swing strongly in ways that reference the tradition but do so with originality. And he can get into a freetime that spurs the group on but also has a musical language going that shows you Chad the musician, the musical drummer. Havard Wiik articulates structure often enough, playing a centering role in the trio. His solos have some of the motor outness of Cecil, and the hunt-and-peck aspect of Havard's style has a kind of discursive logic--like he is saying something from A to B, B to C, sequentially. Ken V. is as always highly articulate, fired up, a person who pays as much attention to the sound he gets as to the notes he plays.

This is measured out avantness, music that has been thought through, that uses ostinato and other repetitive compositional devices in contrast with freely firey variables and/or compositionally lengthier phrasing. It is pretty tightly sequenced episodically. That makes for some exciting listening.

It's an important outing. Chad and Ken hit it off together very well here, as is no surprise, and Havard puts his piano at the center in ways that make things click. Compositional-improvisational inspiration is in no short supply throughout. One of the best out small group excursions of the year!

"Fusk": Kasper Tom, Rudi Mahall, Philipp Gropper, Andreas Lang

Fusk (Why Play Jazz RS005), the self-titled first release by the Berlin-based avant jazz outfit, gives you some sharply defined compositional material by Danish drummer Kasper Tom Christiansen, who heads up the unit. He's joined by some of Europe's finest improvisers: Philipp Gropper (saxophone), Rudi Mahall (bass clarinet), and Andrew Lang (bass).

The Kasper-Andrew rhythm team is limber, loose and swinging in and out of time while Mahall and Gropper play some vividly angular written lines and well conceived solos.

What impresses me about this one is the total leverage of the unit. They kick the music with some torque and have well-poised forward movement. It's the kind of new jazz that takes the impetus of Ornette's early ensembles and the emerging masters of that era, like Simmons, Dolphy, the NY Contemporary Five, early Don Cherry and the Dixon-Shepp unit, and goes someplace new with that.

They do a very good job at it. If you like the propulsed freedom of the giants that came before, you will find something new to like with Fusk. Recommended.

Go to http://www.whyplayjazz.de/fusk for more information.

Secret Handshake, A New Quintet On Engine Records

Into the ranks of new outfits out there playing a modern sort of jazz comes Secret Handshake (Engine 041). It's Brian Settles, saxes, Neil Podgurski, piano, Corcoran Holt, bass, Jeremy Carlestedt, drums and Jean Marie Collatin-Faye on percussion.

They run through eight originals, around half with a strongly compositional approach, the other half more "free". Podgurski shows some rooted piano in a bop and beyond camp but just as often takes it out a bit; Settles has a strong avant side but can evoke some history as well. The rhythm team can go into the symmetrical pocket or veer out of time with confidence.

Brian and Neal have their own way and they are presumably still in the process of gelling in their interactions. They sound like they are on the move as artists. The songwriting/compositional element is well in hand already.

This shows a band with promise. It's a great start. This may not be an indispensable release but it is also not at all the same old formulas. They remind me a little of some of the early AACM and ESP units in their gamely experimental, anything-goes approach. It leads to some good results over around half the album, and some interesting refigurations in flux for the rest. That's what we need right now--to forge ahead without fear. Don't you think?

Marc Ducret, Tower, Vol. 2: Vladimir Nabokov's "Ada" as Avant Jazz Continues

Guitarist Marc Ducret returns with his second volume of Tower (Ayler 119), a musical commentary on Vladimir Nabokov's novel Ada. I reviewed the first volume on my Gapplegate Guitar and Bass Site (www. gapplegateguitar.blogspot.com) several months ago. I review volume two here to ensure that the news of this project reaches the bulk of my readers.

This time out, Marc's well conceived guitar abstractions are joined by the alto of Tim Berne, the violin of Dominique Pifarely, and the drums of Tom Rainey. The music has a fair amount of through-composed passages and free interplay as well. The overall level of abstraction is a bit more present this time out. All four work extremely well together, with sax and violin affording dynamic-stylistic contrast, the drums often joining the front line as a voice with melodic implications not always heard from that instrument, and Ducret's guitar forming a part of the ensemble in the articulation of composed lines at times, and breaking off with independent chordal and textural elements at others. There are also some marvelous four-way collective improvisations to be experienced.

This is ambitious composed music that transcends category. It has modern concert elements, free-sounding elements and elements that fall somewhere in between.

Ducret's guitar work is highly original and very expressive here, though there is not as much of it in a solo context as one might expect. All come up with marvelous performances that turn what might have had an air of arid abstraction into a fully living, breathing vibrancy.

This is something you should hear. It is excellent.

Tarfala Trio, "Syzygy": Live in Belgium, 2009

The Tarfala Trio is a hot avant trio commodity. It's Mats Gustafsson, tenor and alto fluteophone (?), Barry Guy, acoustic bass, and Raymond Strid on drums. You might well know Matt via his association with Brotzmann's Chicago Tentet. He is a blazing gamer and has big ears to shout or whisper as needed. Barry Guy is one of the premier new jazz bassists, of course, and can solo or play ensemble with his very own sound and inventive genius. Raymond Strid plays a damned fine set of drums and adds a great deal to the trio's dynamic.

They were fortunately caught live in Belgium for a date in 2009 when they were particularly inspired. The set has come out on two vinyl LPs and a bonus six-inch disk as Syzygy (New Business NBLP 35/36).

Far be it for me to tell you what to do or think. I do suggest however that you check this one out if you can. It's a limited edition of 600 records. And it's to me one of the more creative and satisfying reed-bass-drum avant trio recordings of the year. Gustaffson flames and finesses; Guy throttles, tumbles and bows through the session with energy and musical reflexivity. Strid gives the sound leverage and drama with some well placed period-punctuating, thrashing and slapdashing.

This is one for the record-books (collection)! They are hot and give it all they've got. Trust me, it's a goodie!