Lotte Anker, Rodrigo Pinheiro, Hernani Faustino, Birthmark

I sometimes have to catch myself wondering how so many excellent players out there can devote themselves to a form of music that offers potentially and comparatively little in the way of economic recompense, yet demands a lifetime of study and performance, a sacrifice often of the comforts of home to be replaced by continual touring. These people are heroes and they should be touted to the skies by every cultural agency that has anything to say about anything artistic.

I speak of those who play advanced improvisational music, called jazz by some, which to me still makes sense because it is rooted there one way or another. People who play music that is avant, free-flowing, are never going to score a top-40 hit, most likely. Those who judge the artistic merits of the music world in terms of number of units sold are never going to get it, no matter how accomplished and advanced the music. Do we judge Plato on how many copies of The Republic he "sold?" Of course not. If we start doing that we are doomed.

So that's what hits me as I listen to a really captivating album by three practitioners of the improvised arts. I speak of Lotte Anker, Rodrigo Pinheiro and Hernani Faustino and their album Birthmark (Clean Feed 267). Lotte is Danish. Rodrigo and Hernani are Portuguese. Lotte is a woman and plays the tenor, soprano and alto; Rodrigo and Hernani are men and play the piano and the double bass, respectively. And of course it is a matter of how they do all that.

This is free music that rollicks. Not that it is carefree, especially. But everything flies out of the three instruments/instrumentalists in such a lucid way that it all seems so easy, easy-going. These are players who make it sound easy. It is far from that. There is nothing more difficult than creating a music out of a musical language very few speak fluidly and make it make sense. These are ultra-fluid speakers of the new improvisatory language and their three-way inventions have the quality of a profound conversation among equals on topics that are very central to their beings.

There is as much "new music" discourse here as there is "free music" discourse. It's very abstract yet filled with feeling. There is an attention to the sound, the timbres, from all three that is uplifting. Lotte coaxes her own particular tone-personality out of the three saxes and her note choice has very much something personal as well. We've encountered Rodrigo and Hernani before on these pages and they are as effective as ever. Rodrigo works with cascades and string manipulation or sometimes just brings out of very appropriate super-rubato two-hand counterpoint. Hernani makes full use of the contrabass and what it can do arco and pizz. He listens and responds with what seems exactly right and also initiates the conversational segment when it seems time. He's right there in ways that make it work, and a joy to hear.

These are three artists at the top of their craft making a spontaneous music that rings true and has real locutionary power. Birthmark is a genuinely exciting contribution to the music. So, listen already, OK?

Abdelhai Bennani, Itaru Oki, Alan Silva, Makoto Sato, New Today, New Everyday

The disk before us is the product of a moment in time, yet it is forever caught as in permanent arrest. That, if you will, is the paradox, the dialectic even, of free improvisation recordings. Like a live action freeze-frame shot, we experience the recording differently, see/hear more things in it, than we might if we were experiencing the music live. And if we've heard the disk(s) repeatedly, we do know what's coming, whereas live we can never be so sure.

The freeze framing we have before us is the 2-CD set New Today, New Everyday (Improvising Beings ib13), by four free improvisers that know what they are about and work together in tight-loose formation to bring about the collective sound art of which they are so central a part.

Who are they? Abdelhai Bennani, tenor sax, from Morocco as I understand it; Itaru Oki, trumpet; Makoto Sato, drums; and the legendary Alan Silva on synthesizer.

This is not music that is in any way casual. They are here to play, to make serious, advanced avant improvisational music, and they do. The first disk finds Bennani, Oki and Sato holding forth. Silva joins the three for the second disk.

Bennani and Oki form an excellent free front-line, Silva becomes both a front line member and an orchestrator of tone as well when he enters. Sato makes significant percussive utterances. He is central to the overall wash of sound. Bennani is a new name for me. He is a kind of instinctual player that does the right thing at the right time. The others do that as well, each in his own special way. You might say that Oki is a bit more schooled on his instrument--and the Sato/Silva contribution is all of that and deeply concentrated as well in the best moments. It becomes one four-headed musical being as the music comes at us. This is group music in the collective, unified manner than works to create a tradition-free zone, which by now is a tradition of its own.

It's freely unfolding music in the classic sense, "new thing" going strong, having something to say and saying it. There is much in the way of dynamic interplay at all times, more than there is soloist and "rhythm." That of course fits the stylistic realm of overall, allover sound canvasing that they do so well.

There is much to be heard on this set. The second disk satisfies me the most but the trio side builds up so that when the quartet comes into play, you are very ready for what follows.

The avant improv mold is one that creates a magic of the moment in the right hands. These are the hands, and there follows magic. The fact that we can examine it repeatedly with this set, in "freeze-frame," means that we can get inside the improvisational minds of the artists more so than in a totally live situation. The fact that it keeps sounding better the more you listen means you are understanding what happened that day, more and more so, and what happened was good indeed.

So listen and climb into the zone.