Trygve Seim, Rumi Songs

When one is on the receiving end of all the newness out there as I am in my reviewer-blogger capacity, one can never be sure what one will be exposed to next. Trygve Seim's Rumi Songs (ECM 2449) is one of those where I had no idea what to expect, and was happily shocked by the old-in-the-new, the lyrical-in-the-deep sort of music to be heard here.

Seim plays tenor and soprano sax in the way that ice on a small pond may build up over time. It is all of a piece as that sheet of ice, yet there is an ever-varying way it hangs together from section-to-section, piece-to-piece. Certainly Garbarek's imprint is upon what he does, but he transforms it all.

The program is a series of songs Seim composed out of the poetry of Jelaluddin Rumi in the English translations of Coleman Banks and Kabir Helminski. Now this is deep imagination at work to begin with. Seim sets them to music--his own saxophones, the accordion of Frode Haltli, the cello of Svante Henryson, and the stunning vibratoless mezzo-soprano voice of Tora Augestad.

There are tightly composed lieder where the sequence and arrangement give musical life to the poetry; and there are others where there is a looser structure that allows for improvisation. As a listener one suspends expectations and lets music and meaning wash over one's senses.

The unique ensemble sound in the hands of Seim, his appropriation of Indian, Arabic and perhaps Euro folk elements give depth and musical voice to the imagery of the poems.

I find the music haunting, not easily forgotten, ever opening like the paper-flower sculptures as a kid I mused over. There is more. And then more. And unlike the paper structures you can unfold the aural world repeatedly.

It is music that puts you somewhere you do not expect to be but are glad of it. This is the new ECM I suppose you could say, or a part of it, expanding the open and ambiant creativity the label has always espoused but giving us things with a further sense of depth, a sonance that transcends categorization.

Beautiful.

Guy Klucevsek, Teetering on the Verge of Normalcy

Don't believe it when composer-accordionist Guy Klucevsek titles his new album Teetering on the Verge of Normalcy (Starkland 225). This is music that is nicely accessible but nonetheless extraordinary and delightfully subversive of categories. This album showcases especially the compositional side of Klucevsek, though there is marvelous accordion playing, too.

Violin down-townist Todd Reynolds is a beautiful presence on a fair amount of this, but then there are other contributors too, and all sound just right for the parts they handle.

Guy gives us a terrific mix of folk- and folk-dance-influenced pieces, but then there is a new music-new tonality side too, with a bit of jazz feeling surely. It is the vertical mix of influence in each work and the horizontal trajectory of the entire program that is a wonder to apprehend. Everything tends to stay in your head. The more you listen, the more the pieces seem like old friends you are visiting with again.

The impetus for the album is partly elegiac, remembering good people now gone from us, but it is celebratory of their lives perhaps more than a strictly mourning sort of thing. Heartfelt, certainly.

I will not try to tack on influence labels for each piece. It is something you must listen to to appreciate, after all. And the way Guy puts it together is a model of how personal musical lifeways can be put into play for something very contemporary and original yet rooted and earthy.

Normal? Only if a beautifully arranged and constructed patch quilt of the classic sort is in any way ordinary. If it is, it is HOW it all fits, but that is not usual but extraordinary, especially in music.

This is music that makes of diversity a happy thing, a creative and vital living thing.

Don't miss this. Thanks, Guy! Encore!

Four Pillars of Destiny

I find in general that free jazz vocalists have a hard road. What to do? It is not easy. Your being is out there, exposed, on the line.

Four Pillars of Destiny (Improvising Beings ib51) is a quartet date in the avant free jazz zone that features vocalist Maki Hachiya in congress with Shota Koyama on drums, Yuta Yokoyama on trumpet and Hugues Vincent on cello. We've encountered Hugues on these pages with many good things. The others I have heard-written about much less. But all four get something happening very interesting collectively on this album.

Maki uses her voice as an instrument and comes out with things uniquely hers. It took me a listen or two to get into the zone, but then I did. Vincent does what one expects from him, which is really worthwhile playing. Yuta plays a lot of trumpet and makes some excellent note-timbre choices. Shota drums with schooled freedom and energy. And together they make something truly worth hearing.

So I find myself transported after hearing this a few times.

How much free jazz do you need to own? My rule of  thumb is that if you want to hear something repeatedly then it belongs in your collection. That's me. You may not need 200 Evan Parker albums, but you need a full spectrum of that and alternatives, because each different set of players and lineups ideally gives you something different.

And I recommend Four Pillars of Destiny for that reason. It's different and it grows on you. But it is not something to play once and file away. Partly because once is not going to do it. Buy it to hear it! That I recommend! Happy autumn. 

Cortex, Live in New York

Some albums hit from the moment you hit "play" and never let off. I found that happily true of Cortex and their Live in New York (Clean Feed 381). These are not players I know well. At least not until now.

It's Thomas Johansson on trumpet, Kristoffer Alberts on saxes, Ola Hoyer on double bass, and Gard Nilssen on drums. Not New Yorkers per se but recorded live here at IBeam in Brooklyn last year. And they were most surely "on it!"

They have an irresistible swing going on and a pronounced old-new thing influence as they burn their way through two short and one longer Johansson tune. "Burn" is the watchword because they really do. Both Johansson and Alberts get a froth of energy and soul freedom going which is backed up by the flaming rhythm section that riffs and swingingly charges forth. Classic Ornette, the NY Contemporary Five and early Sonny Simmons come to mind as precursors to this music--in the best indirect sort of way because Cortex takes it all to their own present-day place.

This is a scorcher! It clocks in as an LP in length but that feels just right. Big recommendation!

Bobby Kapp, Matthew Shipp, Cactus

When I heard drummer Bobby Kapp on Marion Brown's Three for Shepp many years ago I was jolted. Here was a drummer that swung in his own way and had a rootsy feel for the drum kit's many sonic possibilities. I caught him on some others but generally missed his later output...until now. But his presence on the Brown album has stuck with me all these years.

Following on the heels of an album out a couple of years ago, Themes 4 Transmutation, which grouped Kapp with Matthew Shipp and Ras Moshe Burnett (and I must hear that one!) we have a full CD of duets by Shipp and Kapp, Cactus (Northern Spy 079).

I've listened a bunch of times, and each time it gets better. Matthew, always at the forefront of the new free jazz piano, is relaxed and filled with great ideas, chordal-compositional spontaneity, beautifully abstract scatter, inside-the-piano projections, crazy-good outswing, open-form discoveries, he is inspired here and Bobby gives us an update on why he is such a sensitively effective drum exponent. And such a great partner to have on a free excursion. There is a natural rightness to his phrasing, a poise, a flowing torrent of the expected and unexpected.

And it all swings even when it is not doing so overtly. If there is no sound in life that is not followed by another, then all is rhythm. If there is no note that doesn't eventually fall into the lap or tag onto the sequence of another somewhere in time and space, then all is melody and harmony. When there is transcendent deliberation that makes it all meaningful, there are things like Cactus.

This album is a model for what great things can happen when two masters respond to one another and let it go where it may. Happy is the avant enthusiast who hears this. That's you. Grab onto this and it will stick to you in years to come. Brilliant!

Klez-Edge, The Struggle Can Be Enobling, Featuring Burton Greene

When I heard that pianist-avant-icon Burton Greene was doing something in the Klezmer realm, I knew that it would not be standard Klezmer fare but had no idea where it was going to go. Happily he sent me his 8th Klez venture recently and I have been very much digging into it. Klez-Edge The Struggle Can Be Enobling (Disk-Respect 01) is a very nice mix of rearranged Klez-classics and originals.

Klez-Edge manages to sound both Klezmer authentic and throughout free-loose in the classic Burtonian ensemble way. That does not mean this is specifically a "free jazz" set, but there is an invigorating openness that makes it edgy as well as "Klezzy."

That is made possible of course by Burton's arrangements and compositions but also by the quartet line-up. Burton is on piano and keys and sounds great. Alex Coke plays a limber and central role on tenor, soprano and flute, with a good open-jazz feel and a Klezmer flourish when it seems right. Larry Fishkind gives the band an old-timey-and-beyond sound with the tuba functioning in rootsy and avant ways where the double bass might otherwise be. That gives the band some flexibility too in that he can play counter-lines and solos that stand out as horn lines as well as bass foundations. He does well. Roberto Haliffi is the backbone of the group on drums, combining the snare-centric Klezmer drum style with more modern and open forms.

This is an album of lively music, some old favorites done newly, some new gems both Klez-like and beyond and an unmistakable Greeniana to it all.

Wipe away expectations of what the typical Klezmer revival band is supposed to sound like and instead dig the innovative world-jazz-Greene way through this music. I have been taking to this album more and more. I now perk up to see the cover and find it unforgettable.

Great album! Thanks Burton for taking us to a very good place here. Get this!

Sonus Inenarrabilis, Nine Live Plays the Music of John Clark

John Clark, of course, has been the first-call jazz French hornist of choice in the music for many years. He is also a very talented jazz composer, and his new CD may surprise a few and gladden many as to how talented he is! Sonus Inenarrabilis, Nine Live Plays the Music of John Clark (Mulatta 033) is a rather breathtaking gathering of six chamber jazz works played beautifully by John, Dan Cooper, bass, and a nine-tet that includes clarinet, violin, cello, viola, drums, bassoon and keyboards, conducted by Thomas Carlo Bo.

Some of these pieces were written a while ago ("Turbulence" is from 1984), others are new. All are smart, musically profound chamber jazz gems with new music complexities atop a bedrock of soulfulness that makes of this music something outstanding.

The part writing and its judicious interplay between winds, strings and rhythm is endlessly stimulating and rewarding. It is music George Russell no doubt would have liked because of its substance combined with its drive.

We get a good bit of John's marvelous French horn work but this is especially about the ensemble interactivity and the stunning blend of voices, the sometimes startling, always original combination of lines.

Get this, you who want to hear some really great compositions, modern as a giant LED screen, as directly communicating as a good storyteller in front of a glowing campfire. Bravo!