Nu Band, The Cosmological Constant

Nu Band is a significant gathering of contemporary avant jazzmen, an all-star lineup, who dedicate their recent album The Cosmological Constant (Not Two 923-2) to the memory of Roy Campbell, a close musical associate and former band member who was taken from us so sadly and unexpectedly a few years ago. If I am not mistaken yesterday would have been Roy's 63rd birthday, so this posting is timely, though of course the NY jazz community's anguish over his loss does not diminish via such anniversaries.

Nu Band carries on with a fine set of originals and some first-rate avant improvisations. The current lineup features the cornet of Thomas Heberer (who also celebrated a birthday recently), the alto sax and clarinet of Mark Whitecage, the bass of Joe Fonda and the drums of Lou Grassi.

These four of course are seasoned masters who show us that their creative powers are anything but diminished with the passage of time. On the contrary. The originals serve to identify the band and set up their solowork. Heberer contributes two, Fonda three, Whitecage one and Grassi three. They stand out as very worthy fare and very conducive performance platforms.

All four players get equal billing, which fits with the high artistry of each and makes this a cooperative venture in the best sense. Each is an important force, an innovator on his respective instrument(s), and we hear that fully on this set. The solo routines give space to all four players in varying combinations.

Grassi and Fonda, as one might expect, are more than a rhythm section--they are equally articulate melodists with the frontline so that the distinction between the two often enough becomes moot. But when they elect to swing ahead in rhythmic fashion they do so with impact and authority.

Heberer and Whitecage work wonderfully well in tandem as well as via their solo selves. Everybody has an original leg-up on post-bop avant line rendering and as you might expect the hearing is a revelation as well as a solid gas.

There are no dull moments to this music--and that's as you would expect with such a gathering. It's a very fine example of a great band carrying on with subtlety and fire. Roy would have appreciated the tribute. We all can appreciate the here and now of the music on this excellent set!

Moo Lohkenn Source of Sound, Trace in Mirror

Moo Lohkenn, singer-artist extraordinaire. Drummer great Lou Grassi was very kind to send me a CD she did with him and the impressive Leonard Jones on contrabass, as the trio Source of Sound, Trace in Mirror (Konnex 5188). I am so glad he did!

Moo is one of those very rare artists who can sing in the free improvisation jazz zone and make it work, really work. I've covered some others too here of course. But she is IT also. A woman from IT-land! The trio is a total gas, with bass and drums blowing up a storm, and then Moo comes in and she is a horn, and a great horn! When she directs herself to a quasi-song for a few times here and there she shows a powerfully alive, crackling implied super-sophisticated sense of time and/or an iconic archetypal inheritor of the Afro-American roots in the field-holler, the work-song, the spiritual, you hear all that in her voice and yet it's avant all the way.

Now the first time through, to be honest, I was puzzled because so few can do this sort of thing right, and she was doing it in such her own way that I was flabbergasted! The more I listened the more I got into her circuit, her wave length, patched into her crackling live-wire presence and from then on I was there! Grassi and Jones are one hell of a "backing" rhythm team, though they are truly co-equals here. And it works. Play it twice and see!

This is extraordinary music. It is extraordinary singing. And it's out like the way out is in. Really!

The Nu Band, Relentlessness, Live at the Sunset, Roy Campbell, Mark Whitecage, Joe Fonda, Lou Grassi

When a very good band in the improvisatory arts achieves a certain comfort level playing together, in some cases that may take years, the music they produce when they are on the mark can be both very together collectively, and individually on a very high level.

That was certainly the case with the Nu Band when they recorded earlier this year at the Sunset in Paris. The resultant CD Relentlessness (Disques Futura et Marge 49) bears this out quite nicely.

For it has a great group dynamic going, loosely swings and speaks poetically and coherently, and gives you some of the best playing of Roy Campbell, Jr., Mark Whitecage, Joe Fonda, and Lou Grassi on record.

There are effective compositions by all the band members, and some sterling improvisations from the trumpet, reeds, contrabass and drums. Each artist is an original stylist of course, and the band has a direct kind of improv immediacy that comes about when all is right. This music, understandably given the players' deep roots in the music and long time immersion in it, is the evolution and extension of the new jazz, the new improv, as it stands today, state-of-the-art.

So naturally I would advise you to hear this one!