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!

Kenny Werner, The Melody

In the later '80s, with graduate school behind me, back in the NY Metro area, I had one of those kind of deja-vu experiences one has all too infrequently. My friends and I decided to catch a set with the Eddie Gomez group at the now defunct New York club Fat Tuesday's. We had a good table and the band sounded well. I took a look at the piano player and it hit me that I somehow knew the guy, while I was digging what he was doing. It eventually dawned on me that this fellow was a classmate of mine some 15 years before at Berklee, that I had seen him around in the halls though I never actually knew him. It was Kenny Werner, by then well established as a jazz artist around the scene. I knew his name from record albums, knew and appreciated his work, but his face in person told me that our paths had crossed physically those years ago.

Time has gone by, Kenny has further enhanced his reputation as a pianist of true importance with Joe Lovano and others, he has written a fine book about musical mastery, and now here he is again--with a piano trio album, The Melody (Pirouet 3083).

Just because we passed each other in the hallways in 1971 is of course no reason to like his music. That is something one either hears and appreciates or does not. I have found him to be an excellent exponent of modern harmonically rich jazz for some time now. He clearly has grown out of the Bill Evans, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea acoustic modes, but over the years and now especially has turned that into his own completely original sound.

The trio sports excellent players in Johannes Weidenmueller on bass and Art Hoenig on drums. A fine piano trio demands much these days from its bassists and drummers, and this trio is no exception. We get a sensitive and evolved way of building foundations and launching outwards from them with this rhythm section.

But especially worthy of your ears is the finely wrought, complete pianism of Kenny. He sounds better than ever here, with some excellent compositional springboards (and a jazz standard or two), a finely honed, brilliant harmonic-melodic way about him and a beautiful sense of touch.

He asserts in this set his supremacy in the changes-centered realm of jazz piano artistry, both as fine and innovative a player as you will hear today in this zone and a way about him that will bring joy to those open to pianistic excellence. This for sure is one of his finest albums. The mature Kenny Werner is something to hear, a master of the idiom, greatly swinging as well as finely subtle.

Thanks Kenny for giving us this music! Very much recommended.

Old Time Musketry, Drifter

Old Time Musketry and their album Drifter (NCM East 40139) have a certain appealing quirkiness. The quartet occupies its own niche in the contemporary jazz landscape. They are composition oriented, structured in a sort of "progressive" way, sometimes overtly avant, always most definitely "new" and unusual.

Part of that has to do with the musicians involved, part with the instrumentation and the roles each instrument plays in the totality. The group consists of Adam Schneit on tenor and clarinet, who also contributes two of the compositions, JP Schlegelmilch on accordion and piano, who crafted the bulk of the compositions here, plus Phil Rowan on acoustic bass and Max Goldman on drums (and tambourine and melodica). Brian Drye guests on trombone for one cut.

Everybody is first-rate musically. The tenor-accordion frontline makes for a sonic identity, not just by virtue of the actual sound of the instruments together but also importantly in how the music is arranged and the improvisatory skills of the two. Alternately they can switch to, for example, clarinet and piano, which then gives the music another dimension. Both are interesting and accomplished soloists, as is bassist Rowan.

The composed approach defines the music especially. The writing is quite nicely involved and intricate in a modern folksy-cafe-meets-contemporary manner. And there are through composed elements the ensemble takes on for the solo segments that continue to mark off the sound as unique.

The words I have used so far to describe the music relate to my experience of listening to it, but do not do full justice to how this music sounds. Imagine then some lineage that includes Weill and Carla Bley. Somehow Old Time Musketry relates to those roots but very much goes its own way. Schneit and Schlegelmilch have much to do with that in their writing and improvisatory interactions. Both are original and the rhythm section greately adds to the sound via what it plays and how it helps in creating the song-composition structures.

It is a fine album. It is a different kind of contemporary sound that resonates with roots but goes well along on its own path.

Listen to this one!

All Included, Satan in Plain Clothes

From last December at Oslo's Nasjonal Jazzscene we have the very potent free-avant jazz quintet All Included and their Satan in Plain Clothes (Clean Feed 326). It is a vibrant showing firmly in the post-new thing realm more so than a new music orientation, which is only to say that it has especially strong jazz roots more than not.

It is a European gathering of heavies perhaps not as especially well known in the States as they should be, but worthy of our ears in all senses.

In the quintet is saxophonist Martin Kuchen, trumpet wielding Thomas Johansson, trombonist Mats Aleklint, double bassist Jon Rune Strom and drummer Tollef Ostvang. They are markedly intent on articulating some excellent head compositions, three by Strom, two by Martin Kuchen and one by Leo and Martin Kuchen. The frameworks are classic sounding vehicles in a new thing zone.

The originals set things up for a free falling or swinging excellence from the rhythm team of Strom and Ostvang, who spike the music and at the same time bring an irresistible momentum to it all.

Martin carries a saxophonic torch heroically and lucidly. Thomas shows a good deal of the old/new jazz tradition in his well healed performances. And Mats has a bit of the old tailgating exuberance along with an avant soulful drive. The three in the frontline work very well together in realizing the heads, engaging in three way improvs and in their individual solo spots.

If I sometimes hear a little of the New York Contemporary 5 and the New York Art Quartet in the music it is only to say that they are extremely mindful of the roots of free jazz and work as an ensemble in ways that reflect the lessons to be learned from those seminal '60s groups without slavishly copying or consciously setting about to create parallels. They have roots but they also have something to say about how we can work out new sounds that go beyond those roots in happy ways.

If someone were to ask me, right now, to play some exemplary free jazz made today, I might certainly put this one on, along with perhaps a good deal else. That is how much I value this date, obviously. It is a genuine goodie. So get a copy if you will! I expect you'll feel like I do after a few listens.

Laszlo Gardony, Life in Realtime

Laszlo Gardony has broken out of the pack in the past few years to establish himself as a creative force, a contemporary modern jazz pianist and bandleader of note and promise. I've covered several of his albums here (check the search box) and am now happy to talk a little about his new one, Life in Realtime (Sunnyside 4019).

This one finds Laszlo fielding a together rhythm team of self, John Lockwood on bass and Yoron Israel on drums, plus a three-tenor lineup of some potent voices: Bill Pierce, Don Braden and Stan Strickland (the latter doubling on bass clarinet as well). I've appreciated Stan since his days with Baird Hersey's Year of the Ear and he still sounds great. The other two have crossed my ear paths fortuitously over the years as very articulate hard post-boppers. Yoron is a drummer's drummer and shows why that is so on the album. Lockwood locks in with Yoron and Laszlo for some significant modern pulsations.

The entire album was recorded at Berklee's Performance Center a year ago. It has the sort of spirited thrust of an engaged audience-performer intersection, making the music climb several notches higher than a studio date ordinarily does.

The music is first-rate contemporary jazz heat, with lots of blowing space for all and a particularly fine showing in that wise with Laszlo and the three tenors. From "Impressions"-like modal blowing to hard bop to reworkings of the standard "Lullaby of Birdland" and originals, it all takes pride of place as a very engaged and hard charging foray into the modern jazz arts.

And so we have a strongly rooted set that sets about to restructure ageless contemporeinity, to fashion it into the shape of the spontaneous now. Good pianism and lively tenor explosions are especially out front for a happy result.

Nice! And another notch in the Gardony belt at that.

Intricacies, Paul Hubweber, Frank Paul Schubert, Alexander von Schlippenbach, Clayton Thomas, Willi Kellers

As this Monday in the heart of September dawns I can hear the extensive traffic making its way into Manhattan on the local Interstate some five blocks away from my I believe soon-to-be-abandoned home. Like in years past when I traveled that route into the city daily, individual and commercial traffic has once again amassed to put the big push into the season ahead, filled with people scurrying and striving to do the will of their masters, and trucks filled with various crap destined to be sold during "Black Friday" and the "Christmas rush." Peace on earth and good business to retail. As for many years since the downturn, I am not included in that mad dash to the holidays. For a number of years that traffic sound diminished greatly with the recession but now it is back. I may no longer be needed in this commercial orgy, so instead I write about some "crazy music" surely not part of the mad accumulation of riches, nor am I in any way compensated for these sometimes Herculian efforts. I set the stage for this review because surely this music vividly contrasts with the common denominator cash-dash that surrounds me. And that to me heightens the contrast between "free, avant jazz" and the creation of "product" that otherwise is in this world I am in, central and all-encompassing.

What would the group of musicians gathered together on the two-CD recording today, Intricacies (NoBusiness CD 74-75), think about it all, let alone the owner of the label so aptly called "NoBusiness"? They are surely aware that there is a gap between what they do and "business as usual." Avant garde improvisation is NOT a business. It stands outside of the world of commerce, for the most part. It is judged by standards, surely, that have nothing to do with financial success, that instead dwell in the realm of creative artistic expression not meant to "sell" much.

And who am I, the enthusiast and sometimes participant on the new musical arts? It is of no importance outside of the small circle I inhabit--the creators, the supporters. So no matter.

What matters in the end is the music. Intricacies gathers together five intrepid free arts practitioners, holding forth at the B-Flat club in Berlin on a February night in 2014. You may know Alexander von Schlippenbach, who is on piano throughout. You may be less familiar with his associates, Paul Hubweber on trombone, Frank Paul Schubert on alto and soprano, Clayton Thomas on bass, and Willi Kellers on drums. They are all very good.

Paul Hubweber plays an extroverted and adroit role in the ensemble as the trombonist. Frank Paul Schubert, too, has much to say on reeds. As expected von Schlippenbach comes through with a pianistic fluidity that lives up to his near-legendary reputation in the free music world. And both Thomas and Kellers give us a rhythm section that ranges far and wide to push it all forward.

This is a solid block of excellent free improvisation that lets the collective take its own way through the open possibilities of what can be. It is free music with the individual stamp of the players, in the manner that you might expect in the Euro realm of the music today, by those who show prodigious "jazz" roots in what they do, but with the slant of this special group of players on a good night.

So in spite of the turmoil of commerce and its selectivity of who grabs the most goodies and who perhaps gets nothing much from it, there continues the art forms of those pretty much on the outside of it all. And the music expresses something of the "beyond" I guess, of not being in the center of it all, but creating a creative center of its own with the reward of being recognized by the avant community? Yes. So I might say that here is an audio product of that "outsideness" that is worth your attention. It is exemplary music, something important to the collective, good music with no pretensions or ambitions in the commercial sphere, yet music that captures our times with creative zeal, uncompromisingly of our world without going by rules others might think central to it.

So I do suggest you buy it and in that way buy into an alternative to the mad rush of big profit and big doings. This is small doings. Small but someday no doubt recognized as an important part of the creative world today? Yes, I hope for that.

Karl Berger / Kirk Knuffke, Moon

Today's music is a real treat! It is a two-CD duet between Karl Berger and Kirk Knuffke. It is entitled Moon (NoBusiness NBCD 76-77). On it we get 16 numbers composed by Karl, Kirk or both, with extensive improvisations.

Knuffke is that rapidly rising cornet firebrand who has graced quite a few sessions of late, a player of classic poise and excellent ideas. Berger is a living monument, a vibraphonist among the very best, a beautiful force for avant jazz, new thing, or whatever you want to call it since the '60s and his seminal recordings on his own and with Don Cherry. He also is the founder of the all-important Creative Music Studio, leader of a very fine big band, pianist of thoughtful demeanor and composer of great strength.

OK, all that considered you would expect this two-CD set to be something fine. And it is. There is a strong connection in place between the two throughout. Karl sounds just fabulous. And he even plays some melodica here, happily. Kirk gets a chance to interact with Karl in ways that show an introspective, intimate side of his playing we don't hear as much of in the larger ensemble performances. The compositions are anything from "blowing" structures to full-blown, more or less through-composed gems. They combine with the improvisatory brilliance of the two in especially good form to make a recording that breathes with true life.

I do not need to break the music down into little bits. You can do that as you listen. The fact is, though, that the music hangs together so well as a whole that the experience is in that way holistic. It is exceptionally there at nearly every moment. It is a voyage from disk to ears that puts you in a special place, the sort of thing only two masters of the improvisatory arts can give you and that on especially good days.

I cannot recommend this album more heartily. It is a strong part of our now fading year, certainly.