Variable Density Sound Orchestra, Evolving Strategies

Guitarist-composer Garrison Fewell's Variable Density Sound Orchestra has made some excellent music in the past. The smaller ensemble heard in the album Evolving Strategies (Not Two MW911-2) has a particular resonance, in part because of the beauty of the compositions and their improvisational fulfillment, and in part because they are some of the last recordings made by the avant titans John Tchicai and Roy Campbell, Jr., both of whom were tragically taken from us not so very long after.

The band as a whole is every bit as good as the illustrious nature of the names. OK, perhaps bassist Dmitry Ishenku is not very well known, still he is very good. But then there is trombone master Steve Swell, who graces the session with his rangy expressions and a composition that stays long in the mind, "Mystical Realities," with a very groovy ostinato and a head melody that matches it. John Tchicai is on tenor and gives us two of his compositions and some beautiful improvisations. Roy Campbell reminds us why he is so missed on trumpet, flugel and flute. Reggie Nicholson turns in as always the right performance, with an impeccable feel and touch on drums. And then there is the leader, Garrison Fewell, with his very smart guitar freedom and exemplary compositions.

These are players at the peak of modern avant jazz and they perform accordingly. Whether collectively or singly they come through with sterling utterances that could serve as models for what the state-of-the-free-art is all about today. The compositional frameworks are both sophisticated and down-home at the same time, reminding at times of what was so exciting about the work of AACM artists in the first years of their blossoming (and after, surely).

It's an album you grow into each time you hear it, so that by now it is a recent favorite for me. It is that good and so much worth hearing and having. Get it!

William Hooker, Heart of the Sun

William Hooker is a free-drummer of great, dramatic dynamics, a player with real fire and, increasingly, a bandleader of importance. All this can be heard to good advantage on his new one, Heart of the Sun (Engine 051). It's a live set recorded at the Roulette this past February. Hooker presents his music on this outing with a trio that roars, whispers and incants its way into your soul, soul-to-soul.

The ever-significant Roy Campbell puts some serious trumpet heat into the musical cauldron in a way only he can do. He is glowing. On open horn he gives us a clarion call. On mute he extends his sound with smarts and flair. And his flute playing is quite decent and definitely worth your eartime. An unusual touch comes from David Soldier on violin, banjo and guitar, who is filled with the spirit and colors the ensemble nicely. His banjo playing brings some roots into the picture in very hip ways.

William Hooker sounds his always creative, busy, virtuoso driving self here with some of his very best drumming on disk.

It's new new thing all the way with some nice head melodies and supreme free fire-breathing. Heart of the Sun flames your way with excellent sound! You can heat your pad with this one, honest. Check it out.

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!

Stone Quartet Live at Vision Festival (Leandre-Campbell-Crispell-Maneri)

The Vision Festival in New York City has quite likely come to be the most important "progressive" jazz festival in the US today. It lasts for several days and includes some of the most important improvising musicians active. For the 2010 edition the festival was graced by the presence of the Stone Quartet. Their performance there is to be had on the Ayler Records CD Live at the Vision Festival (Ayler 124).

It's a free improv set with a most interesting lineup: the bassist Joelle Leandre, an excellent improviser who has been creating exciting avant music across the pond for many years; Roy Campbell, trumpet master with an exceptionally fertile sense of invention and precise timbral control; Marilyn Crispell, a truly innovative force for outside pianism; and Matt Maneri, a violist who graces any ensemble with intelligent improvisations that have a kind of conceptual rigor.

It's 41 minutes of excellent ensemble interaction from a group that one only hopes will gather together to play again many times in the future. The lack of a drummer helps the string section shine forth with clarity and transparency, though I would like to hear this group hold forth with an equally creative drummer-percussionist as well. There is a cohesive collective statement that you hear come into being before your very ears, so to speak. They embody the excitement of the now, the elation of spontaneous collective composition.

Hear this one! And hear this music live whenever you can. Each of these artists deserve your support. They are at the top of their art. And support small labels like Ayler records. They are gateways to our present-day musical world!

Connie Crothers, Band of Fire: Live at the Stone with Roy Campbell

This is the third of a trilogy of recordings Connie Crothers made during her tenure at the famed NYC club The Stone in 2010. We've discussed the other two in earlier posts (see below). For this set Connie engages her long-lived regular group of Richard Tabnick on alto, Roger Mancuso on drums, and Ken Filiano on the bass, plus the addition of trumpet firebrand Roy Campbell.

The Band of Fire (New Artists 1050) title well describes what was happening that night. They play three longish numbers, Connie's post-Lenniesque "Ontology" and two collective improvisations.

And what happens is the band most definitely takes fire. Roy Campbell sounds beautiful, filled with a blazing kinetic energy that soars. Richard Tabnik, too, is hard hitting in his attack, sounding as good as I've heard him. Connie is a marvel as always, inspired here to let loose with barrages of notes, clusters, runs and glisses, in ways that make her one of the seminal pianistic forces active today. The rhythm section charges ahead and does much to keep it a four-way dialog with plenty of power and noted significance.

This is what Connie's group can do so well. They turn up the heat more than usual though. It's another exemplary album for Connie. Great for showing the fire-y side of her artistry, great for showing the band in full flight, great for giving Roy Campbell a platform to launch to an outer place.

It's great ultra-modern jazz improvisation, free and focused, musically dense but pivotally pointed forward. Music to quicken the pulse, enliven the spirit, energize the senses! So here's another one from Ms. Crothers that you really should not miss.

Ken Silverman Assembles an Unusual Sextet on "From Emptiness"

From Emptiness (SoundSeer S1001) is one of those improv dates that starts in a different sort of place and stays there throughout. You are given notice that this is not going to be business-as-usual from the start, with Kossan opening things with some Buddhist chant, followed by Blaise Siwula and Roy Campbell (on alto and trumpet) doing some duo free improvising, eventually joined by Silverman on guitar and Tom Swafford on violin. This is followed by Kossan on Sanshin (a three-stringed stringed instrument from Okinawa) and Dave Miller's free out-of-time drums.

Eventually Tom Shad makes his appearance on the Turkish Cumbus, a banjo-like instrument, along with Ken on Oud, Roy on flute and fluegel, and Blaise on clarinet.

It's a rather unusual melding of chant and free improv, with perhaps chant being the odd-man out. The chants set a tone and atmosphere but otherwise do not have an especially direct relevance to the improvisations that surround them.

However the unusual instrumentation and the free inventive skills of the musicians (especially Siwula and Campbell) carry the day. Maestro Silverman comes through as a guitarist who (along with the rest) is finding intuitive ways of making this musical amalgam work. You get a different view of him than what he sounds like in a more conventional session. There are times when Eastern sounds and Western freedom make a kind of odd-couple partnership. It is in no way uninteresting. It may take some listeners a number of listens before they can assimilate the contrasting strains. It took me a few times.

In the end though you are left with a most unusual concatenation of sounds. I suppose I should say that this is for intrepid listening pioneers particularly. It is not a disk I would recommend for someone still going through the first initiation/immersion in advanced avant improv.