Mostly Other People Do the Killing, Mauch Chunk

Mostly Other People Do the Killing is the potent mix of the now quartet format: Jon Irabagon on sax, Ron Stabinsky, piano, Moppa Elliot on bass and Kevin Shea on drums, doing music that evokes the heritage of jazz from a contemporary viewpoint, often with outright humor or tongue-in-cheek subtlety.

For their latest outing they do not add guests as they sometimes do, but stick with a new quartet format for a program of hard bop, classic Blue-Note oriented music. Mauch Chunk (Hot Cup 153) refers to a small town in Pennsylvania once a part of the thriving local coal industry, now fallen on hard times and renamed Jim Thorpe in honor of the sports hero and with the hopes of attracting tourism.

There are seven Moppa Elliot numbers to be heard here, all fitting in with the hard bop way but played with some outside avant tendencies that come in at times rather brilliantly in ways that may make you smile and even laugh. In my case it is the laughter of appreciation of their adept and seemless multi-language jazz attack. Irabagon's alto and Ron Stabinsky's piano often as not are the instigators of the bad-boy transgressions that no doubt would result in detention for all four if this was music high school.

Yet the music is dead serious at the same time, like Don Pullen could be when he gravitated out of changes-oriented soloing to expressively free outness.

There is enough brilliance from Irabagon and Stabinsky here to keep you listening intently, yet the compositions have the stylistic authenticity and contributory advancement that makes the band convincing on more than one level.

No, this isn't going to raise a furor like "Blue" did. It is no rote restating of the literal past but a serious interaction with it, a forwarding of it, a renewal of older forms for today and a confrontation of today with yesterday.

For that it is a must-hear. This is seriously ahead jazz with the ability to laugh. It's another feather in the caps of the players and the pen of Moppa Elliot. So I suggest you dig into it.

Ochion Jewell Quartet, Volk

Ochion Jewell takes a personal encounter with police brutality in New York City and makes some excellent music that exorcises it, or at least goes a ways in doing that. In a case of apparently mistaken identity, in 2011 Ochion was accosted in a train station by plainsclothesmen, strangled into unconsciousness, then held on phony charges that included planting evidence on him. The case was dismissed, ultimately, but the effects on Ochion's psyche were lasting. From all this comes his excellent second album, Volk (Self Released), based on various world folk musics. By affirming the humanity of music Jewell reaffirms the birthright of peaceful existence, or at least that's my take.

Ochion holds forth on tenor sax in original and very soulful ways. He brings to the session his quartet of long-standing status: Amino Belyamani, a pianist from Morocco, Sam Minale, Persian-American bassist, and Qasim Naqvi, drummer of Parkistani-American heritage. They are joined by guest Lionel Loueke (born in Benin) on guitar.

This is music that jumps out at you as outstanding from the first. Ochion is simultaneously gruff and lyrical, soulful and cerebral, and the folk music resituated gives the band an avant but rootsy and tonal matrix that all the band members take advantage of to give us some really fine modern jazz. It's freewheeling but not always in the realm of super-edgy, which of course is fine, though Ochion lets loose at times in ways that are nothing short of great. The noteful charms of Ochion, Amino and Sam mix with freetime and rhythmically stop-and-go routines initiated mostly by Benyamini. Altogether in this way everything comes across as fascinatingly dramatic and very musical.

Ochion has all the makings of a tenor master and his band is something to hear. Anybody who wants to get with some new sounds must hear this, no kidding! Music hath charms that may not change injustices, in itself, but it sure goes a long ways to counter it all with a life-affirming presence. That's very true here.

Rob Mazurek, Exploding Star Orchestra, Galactic Parables, Volume 1

Rob Mazurek, cornet master, composer, bandleader, has gone about his way in the past decade making some of the most interesting, provocative and forward-moving avant jazz recordings of all, with or without his Exploding Star Orchestra. Now we have a 2-CD set with that orchestra in some of his most ambitious and successful music yet, the Galactic Parables, Volume 1 (Cuneiform).

It comprises two overlapping versions of the multiform work, for recitation, large band and electronics. The first disk was recorded live in Sardegna, Italy; the second in Chicago. The band differs somewhat in personnel on the two sets, but we hear from some of the best either way. Rob appears throughout on cornet and electronics as does Jeff Parker on guitar, Damon Locks does text recitations and electronics, Matthew Bauder is on tenor and clarinet, Angelica Sanchez is on piano, John Herndon, drums, and Matthew Lux on bass. The Italian set includes Mauricio Takara on percussion and electronics, Guilherme Granado on sampler and synth, and Chad Taylor on drums. The Chicago set includes Nicole Mitchell on flutes and voice. I list the personnel in full because the music has much to do with them, their open improvisatory acumen and their well-healed performance of the compositional elements. And they are some heavies!

It is on both disks an apocalyptic, cosmic, beautifully out confluence of recitation and large band sound, electronics and instrumental textures. The texts are poetic and at times altered electronically. This is free big band as lively and innovative in its own way as Sun Ra's classic assemblages, both out and nicely structured, compositional and alternately super-free.

And these are some very together players, too. They do not flag but turn in great work.

It is a Mazurek triumph! So, what, would you expect me to tell you to buy it? Yes! Rob, the artists and the label deserve your support! And the music is excellent. Buy it. Go see them, too.

William Schimmel, Theater of the Accordion

Accordionist William Schimmel is a master of his instrument and a master of the quirky adoption of all kinds of musical source material to his own specific ends. We hear this readily and rather delightfully on his Theater of the Accordion (Roven Records 51115).

What strikes one first off is the sheer breadth of his reach. W.C. Handy's "St. Louis Blues" (with Wynton Marsalis nicely guesting on trumpet), reworkings of music from Mahler's Ninth and Strauss's "Der Rosenkavalier," Schoenberg, Bluegrass, and more besides.

It all becomes pointedly accordionesque in Schimmel's hands. He is a consummate master of the instrument, somewhat offhandedly spontaneous and carefully re-presentative in one moment to the next.

"Wozzeck, the Winner" takes the classic loser of Berg and Herzog fame and makes of him the opposite, in a rather hilarious sort of radio play.

And then the "Carnival of Venice," that mouldy old potboiler, becomes something other in his hands.

It's all quite impressively accordionistic and yes, quirkily so. And it is high artistry audio-fied, for sure. Anyone with a sense of adventure and fun who wants to hear some contentful accordionizing will be very pleased with this. I certainly was.

Willem Breuker Kollektief, Algouleme 18 Mai 1980

The late Willem Breuker (1944-2010) started out years back as one of the founders of the Amsterdam-based ICP (Instant Composers Pool) Orchestra with Mischa Mengelberg and others. (He was also an early, important member of the Gunter Hampel Group and the Global Unity Orchestra.) It rapidly got attention for its extraordinary eclectic mix of avant jazz, historic jazz and you-name it, of compositional fearlessness and improvisational prowess. Breuker was one of its prolific composers and a reedman of larger-than-life brilliance.

Around 1974-75 he formed his own mini-big band, the Willem Breuker Kollektief, and created an even more eclectic mix of unpredictable sounds. We cut ahead to May 18th, 1980, and a live performance of the then nine-member band at Angouleme (FOU 09 & 10), which happily was well-recorded and sees the light of day on the 2-CD set (one full length and one an EP) at hand today.

It is in many ways typical of the Kollektief in full-bloom. Hoary old pop tunes rub shoulders with folk, jazz, classical and arcane elements of all sorts, with an avant jazz superstructure that incorporates it all in a stream-of-consciousness, contrastive totality and a brash sense of humor.

The six-horn front line (including Breuker on clarinet, soprano, alto and tenor) and pianist Henk de Jonge bear much of the thematic and improvisational heft of the ensemble, while the rhythm section has much to do with initiating the sometimes abrupt stylistic segues from genre to genre.

It was a band that had the herculean task of realizing the compositional parts with precision yet also keeping the spontaneously loose avant exuberance alive at all times. Where else would you hear a spoof on the Goodman-Krupa drum-clarinet doings of "Sing, Sing, Sing," a rabid pastiche centering around a somewhat obscure Weill number, a take-off on Bo Diddley's "Bo Diddley" hambone rhythm, torrid Tango burlesques and romantic piano potboilers, all done with a forkyew sort of faux insouciance? The answer might be the ICP Orchestra. But the Kollektief takes all that even further than ICP usually did and does today. And throughout it all there is some excellent big little band moments, where you realize they are quite serious after all, or no, not entirely! "Marche & Sax Solo with Vacuum Cleaner" gives you a good sampling of the "here, no there" multiplicity of the music.

This is the Dutch Jazz revolution gone wild. For that there is nothing quite like it. The Kollektief sounds as great as they ever did on this recording. And partly that's because they thrived in a live setting. But in all ways they have a little something even more bold here, even bolder than usual.

For all these reasons this is an album to get if you don't know Breuker's Kollektief, or one to add to your collection if you already know Willem's music at its peak. Listen up if you will!

John Wojciechowski, Focus

Chicago tenors? Gene Ammons, Von Freeman, John Gilmore immediately come to mind. But they have passed and so must the torch. There has been no shortage of new voices on the tenor from Chicagoland, of course. Today another, one I have not been exposed to previously. John Wojciechowski plays tenor, alto and soprano on his second album, Focus (Origin 82699), but the tenor work is perhaps the most striking.

He fronts an excellent band for this outing, with three musicians he has worked with a good bit. The togetherness of hours on the bandstand comes through well. Ryan Cohan joins him on piano and Rhodes, Dennis Carroll on bass and Dana Hall on drums. They form a tightly together, loosely fluid nucleus for the seven Wojciechowski originals, the one by Dana Hall, and Monk and Brubeck gems.

The music is in the advanced-edge mainstream, post-mid-Trane, post-Blue Note, changes oriented and noteful, swinging in the detailed open way. Everybody sounds great, Cohan solos with power, and the rhythm team is impeccable.

Understandably this is Wojciechowski's day in the sun, though, and he especially stands out. The soprano and alto work is excellent, but his tenor reminds us that there are edge-mainstream cats coming out now who do not sound like they are under the spell of Lovano and some of the Boston cats, that there is another way through. Wojciechowski finds a way by embracing the roots and making them personal. He has the sort of solo style that has a building, a beginning, middle and end, an overall arc that keeps you interested and earful.

I listen one more time as I write this, and I am saying to myself, "yeah!" This is a complete statement, from heads to rhythm to solo. It sings forth nicely. It may well be accessible to everyday folks out there but it does NOT pander. There is integrity and there is talent.

I say yeah! John is a player to watch. To listen to.

Blaise Siwula, Shiro Onuma, Songs for Albert

The sax-drums duo recording from 2009 available now dives right in with four energetic and inventive forays into improvisational freedom. It's Blaise Siwula on tenor and alto sax and Shiro Onuma on drums holding forth on Songs for Albert (No Frills Music 0007).

And so understandably Blaise channels, resituates and extends the over-the-top heritage of freedom that Albert Ayler left to us. Shiro is busy and dynamic in an onslaught of open time, less perhaps akin to Sunny Murray as perhaps to Rashied Ali. The point of it is to go with the heritage of new thingness and make something of it all over again.

Blaise once again impresses with his full sound and fresh ideas. On tenor he is in overdrive, no less on alto. The throaty and soulful take pride of place in an extravaganza of well-turned and sonically beautiful crafted outbursts that of course suggest the homage to Ayler, the continuation of the expressive explosiveness of the master in an extended and original way.

Shiro Onuma bursts forth as a percussive combustion, with continual energy and creative smarts.

There are moments of relative repose, too, as is fitting for a long set.

This is untrammeled avant improv excellence, a showcase for Blaise Siwula served up without interruption and the fine seconding of Shiro Onuma.

Those who don't know Siwula's freeway saxophone inventiveness and finely burnished sound could well start here. It gives you a fine introduction to his improvisatory arts. But even if you know his music it satisfies with a concentric burst of pure zone-dwelling. Bravo!