Tarbaby, Featuring Oliver Lake, Dance of the Evil Toys

 

Just what or where we go in our music present and future is not always clear to me. Like all of us in these days we peer over the horizon and hope for good things. Happily here is a good thing that I am very glad I have come to know. It is the trio Tarbaby with the brilliant Oliver Lake featured as altoist guest. The release is entitled Dance of the Evil Toys (Clean Feed 590CD). 

The trio foundation of this album presents itself as a thing apart, as a thoroughly personal Avant Jazz kind of possibility--with Orrin Evans on piano, someone I have missed for some reason but very glad to encounter here. Then there are the ever-inspired bassist Eric Revis and the wildly swinging and cosmic drummer Nasheet Waits. For much of the album Oliver Lake sounds absolutely essential on alto, and for a few pieces there is trumpetist John Lawrence; for one piece percussionist Dana Murray joins in.

What seems remarkable to me as I listen with appreciation is the wonderfully effective fit of improvisation with Jazz composition. A kind of AfterBop afterburn is sometimes nicely to be felt along with freely yet contentfully expressed Avant Jazz momentum. So we get an obscure but moving Trudy Pitts song with band vocal nicely articulated by Orrin Evans, then there are several gems by Oliver Lake, one by Josh Lawrence, several gems by Eric Revis, a nice one by Nasheet and then closing the set Prince's "Sometimes it Snows in April."

What stays with you as you listen is the care which went into this music, from the outstanding set of compositions to the very astutely constructed group sound and the always beautiful improvising cameos by all concerned.

Highly recommended, a very worthy highlight from the new year of Jazz offerings thus far, a classic for today. Do not miss this!

Francois Carrier, Alexander Hawkins, Nirguna, John Edwards, Michel Lambert

There are days when life intervenes, when it gets in the way of a set routine. If ever one might get distracted, that would be the case in the last year with the Pandemic and etc. So at some point, today's two-CD set arrived in the mail, I noted it with interest, set it aside and...well here we are and it is later. Never too late, though. I now with close listening realize how interesting, important, good, etc. is this album named Nirguna (ColYaKoo Music). It is a live date from the Vortex Jazz Club in London from June 2017. 

It is a very auspicious gathering of Francois Carrier on alto saxophone, Alexander Hawkins on piano, John Edwards, bass, and Michel Lambert on drums. This is the primo Free Jazz we have come to expect from Francois Carrier, with a most remarkable continuity of total freedom flow, of endlessly inventive lining by the full quartet, tumbling outwards, inspired and without a set pulse, so that the four can take off and soar without the least restriction. 

Nirguna in Hindu religious practice means without form or without qualities. That is quite appropriate in the sense that this music is virtually that, though playing with intention does indeed have some kinds of spontaneous form and qualities, yet here we think in terms of no set form or quality. Just like is implicated in post-Freudian psychoanalytic parlance, where a human utterance "means" sometimes in some possibly unconscious way, so this music also means without setting out overtly to intend, though too it may defy some easy set of words to describe it.

The two CDs carry two long improvisations each. The overflowing four-way output can be torrentially heated, pointillistically jagged, fluidly mercurial and/or percussively insistent. Never for a moment does this music flag. And clearly one feels the instantaneousness of it and it exhilarates in the doing!

The Carrier plus Hawkins, Edwards, and Lambert quartet combination is one of Francois' most productive groups to my mind, most inspired, and the live London club setting seems to add to it so that everyone is set into a freedom that has no end in terms of good spontaneous ideas and interlocking power. Carrier, Hawkins, Edwards and Lambert each turn in remarkable performances in both their intrinsic worth and their ability to respond creatively and intelligently each to the other. And never for a moment do you forget that "this is Jazz" for whatever that means ultimately. Never for a moment is there not a central stream of driving expression.

It is a triumphant performance from first-to-last. If you wonder about Carrier or Free Jazz here is a great place to start, If you already know it is a must nonetheless! Hoorah!

Nick Fraser, Too Many Continents, with Tony Malaby, Kris Davis

Nick Fraser is an imaginative drummer on the avant jazz scene, out of Canada, one I am not well acquainted with. Until now, anyway, and his trio recording Too Many Continents (Clean Feed 336) with his talented cohorts Tony Malaby (tenor and soprano) and Kris Davis (piano).

There are three Fraser-penned compositions; the rest are collective collaborations. The free interplay of three bountifully creative musicians is what this set is about, and it is very nice to hear. All three have no shortage of inspired interactive ideas. They put them to excellent use in the service of the whole.

Kris Davis is a pianist I have come to appreciate very much over the last few years. She is within the scatter and splatter piano zone, individually so. She can let loose with torrential noting but then do sparser phrasings too, all with a keen ear for detail and musical coherence.

Tony Malaby, most everyone will know, has his own ever brimming wealth of ideas and timbral presences. He sounds particularly well here with plenty of testificatory declamations that at times ride atop Kris and Nick's dramatic effusions like a person effectively and artfully riding a wild horse. But then there are quieter moments too and Tony phrases and invents rather brilliantly at those times as well.

Nick shows himself a world-class freetime drummer on the set. The openness of a smaller ensemble that knows what it is all about gives Fraser the space to sound his way artfully, with an ear to the totality of sounds and gestures within which a great drummer can both find and lead the way.

Kris is a player who interacts especially well while making her own personal pianistic statements. Tony and Nick do the same within the material particularities of sounding their respective instruments.

It is an impressive and consistently exhilarating blaze of considered sound we get to experience on Too Many Continents. It says a wealth about the creative originality of the three, but it at the same time summons you, the listener, into the orbit of sound ideas and expressions.

Yes, really good going to be heard on this one. A red-hot ticket item to warm your innards like an avant cup of hot chocolate!

Dre Hocevar Trio, Coding of Evidentiality

Slovenian-born drummer Dre Hocevar, 26 years of age at the time of the current recording, has sat at the feet of the masters, Michael Carvin, Ralph Peterson, and Marcus Gilmore as well as Reggie Workman, Hal Galper, Joe Morris and Steve Lehman. He has absorbed some of their spirit and gives us more than a little something of himself on this album of the Dre Hocevar Trio, Coding of Evidentiality (Clean Feed 325).

It is not at all typical as a "drummer's album," but maybe that is true much of the time these days. In this case it is very much a group effort, with trio mates pianist Bram de Looze and cellist Lester St. Louis forming with Dre an interlocking wholeness, aided for one cut by the electronics of Sam Pluta.

It is music firmly in the realm of new music/"free jazz" sonics, with some compositional frameworks as jumping off points apparently, though it all comes across as spontaneous as it definitely is.

What we get on this program is an intricate series of improvisations in three-way dialog (or four) that show very much a fluid sense of line and texture, a virtuosity of intent and a mastery of "free" vocabulary. It all gels in seven very focused pieces.

It is exemplary trio ensemble work today. There is an ease of expression and a fundamental sense of gesture and suchness (if you will pardon the term) that sets this trio apart from just good avant. They seem to project a clarity of purpose as you listen, and once you hear it all several times that clarity remains and becomes something you can almost physically grasp.

And so maybe that's enough to say for now. If you dig the piano trio in an advanced modern realm this is an excellent example of what it can be today.

Listen to this! And not once. . . a few times. Then see what you think. Very recommended.

Tony Malaby's TubaCello, Scorpion Eater

A little bit of back tracking today, with an album that has been available for a little while, but deserves discussion. The release in question is Scorpion Eater (Clean Feed 318) by Tony Malaby's TubaCello. As the group name suggests, this is a Tony Malaby led-group that features tuba, cello (and drums).

Tony of course holds forth as leader on tenor and soprano and is responsible for all the composition frameworks save one, which is a collective work. The album gives us good reasons why Tony is one of the top reedists on the avant jazz scene today. Joining him are Dan Peck on tuba, Christopher Hoffman on cello, and John Hollenbeck on drums, percussion and prepared piano.

The sax-tuba-cello-drums configuration gives us a special sonority that Tony utilizes well for the compositional ins-and-outs. And Dan and Christopher play important roles in the unfolding of the music. There is freedom, a special sort of group vibe, good interplay and spontaneous aural sculpting of a memorable sort.

Tony's well developed saxaphone sound and smart yet soulful note choice set the pace for the group and all three sidemen happily bring their sensitive and inventive selves into the picture for an all-encompassing result. The music pulses forward well thanks to Hollenbeck's motored excellence and the sort of contrapuntal interplay of tuba and cello against that, but there are also moments of chamber sound timelessness, depending on the particular segment of the composition within the total context.

It's not just a showcase for Tony's saxaphone style, though it is that at times. It is a total group effort that moves the music forward while not unmindful of the roots. Tyler's "Eastern Man Alone," Arthur Blythe's interactions with Abdul Wadud, River's Tuba Band with Joe Daley, things like this have some relation to the TubaCello band, but only in the foundational sense. The music sounds like itself here.

And what that is comes to you in very worthwhile ways. Scorpion Eater is one of Tony Malaby's best. The band gives you much to explore! Recommended for anyone keeping track of where things are going in the improv avant jazz realm.

Eric Plaks Quintet, Live at Bronx Community College, 2009

The inside-to-out inclusiveness of pianist Eric Plaks is showcased on the recently released 2009 date with his quintet, Live at Bronx Community College (CIMPoL). It continues on where his studio date (Cadence Jazz) leaves off (see the May 1, 2015 posting for a review of that). The Plaks compositions are set up by a version of "Naima" and one original by tenor saxist Don Chapman, "Elvin Out."

Chapman and Alan Davis form a two-tenor frontline, Leco Reis and Jon Panikkar are the rhythm team on bass and drums, respectively, and then of course Plaks centers things on the piano.

The tenor players take on pre-outside styles as well as the free avant realms. They excel at the latter. Plaks once again shows his piano versatility and remains a soloists of great interest who can channel Cecil but then give out with convincing synthesizing of earlier styles in very much his own way. He is an artist very much worth hearing.

And the compositions stand out too as worthy of our attention.

The live ambiance of the concert gives us an edgy spontaneity that helps push forward the in-the-moment expressivity--which of course is what an in-person jazz presentation does so well if things are right. That's much the case here, surely.

It's a very good listen and another feather in Eric Plaks' cap.

Sylvain Rifflet and Jon Irabagon, Perpetual Motion (A Celebration of Moondog)

When an album wakes you up, and you play it maybe three times before you start getting the hang of where it is coming from, that certainly bodes well for the ahead qualities of the music. I experienced that with the album by Sylvain Rifflet and Jon Irabagon, namely Perpetual Motion (A Celebration of Moondog) (Jazz Village 570047D).

Moondog, as many will know, was a fixture of non-conformity, a hobo who crafted his own music well outside the mainstream of anything going on in the United States at the time, save perhaps Harry Partch, but even then more a parallel than a matching force. Moondog was a fixture of New York outsider art, performing on the street and creating a number of albums in his day that mostly puzzled the world but influenced those open to its iconoclasm. His was a folk avant music, if you will...more out of time than ahead of it.

So French reedist Sylvain Rifflet amassed his tenor, clarinet and electronics gear and melded with American new light Jon Irabagon (perhaps best known as a member of MOPDTK) on alto and tenor, adding to it all with an unusual group and recreating Moondog anew with some striking rearrangements of his music. Sylvain conceived carefully of a reworking of the music, utilizng a children's choir, Irabagon's glowing sax work, adding Bejamin Flament on percussion, Phil Gordiani on guitars, Joce Mienniel on flutes and MS 20, and Eve Risser on piano. It all was recorded and video'd live at the 30th Banlieues Bleues Festival.

The audio has a sort of assertive iconoclasm in keeping with Moondog's outsider stance. It goes in many different directions in a new jazz-meets-new-new diversity. Rifflet and Irabagon do some great improvising together and separately, and the rest comes together with a sort of anything goes and the devil take the hindmost boldness.

This is music better heard than minutely described. What's nice is it goes the distance in its own way so that even if you know Moondog inside-out this adds to his legacy and gives us contemporary jazz that fits no mold at the same time.

Get with this one. No, I am not going to mention Blue. This recording gives you reasons to move on, very good ones.

Cory Wright Outfit, Apples + Oranges

Cory Wright has conquered musical space. It's incontrovertable, as the old Castro Convertible ad jingle used to have it (if anybody remembers that). He's done it especially with his album Apples + Oranges (SingleSpeed Music 012).

What we have on this set is a freely propulsive outing by the Cory Wright Outfit, which has Cory on tenor sax and b-flat clarinet, Evan Francis on alto sax and flute. Rob Ewing on trombone, Lisa Mezzacappa on contrabass and Jordan Glenn, drums.

This is freebop at times, other times free new music that swings brightly, a collective froth well-structured and well-played by all involved. Cory writes some excellent charts here and the band comes through with fire and individual sounds that blend wonderfully well.

It has the tang of modern harmony, the afterbop glow and personal expression of a Dolphy or Mingus of today. That does not mean that anyone as a soloist has reached that plane, and after all how many today could you say that of? But they are very much playing every note right and with feeling, and the compositions give you a great deal to appreciate.

It's a kicker with an iconoclastic razz to the complacent and staid. It is the opposite of a safe and middle-of-the-road old man version of jazz. We need that opposite, that friction against the obvious more than ever if the music is to stay healthy and relevant.

This one is as healthy and relevant as anything today. It's freely outside but composed and performed with a real flair.

I wish this outfit much success. More from them would do just fine with me.

Definitely important music. I recommended you hear it!

Burton Greene with R*time, Burton's Time

Burton Greene, avant improv icon, pianist, composer, creative force, is not one to pin down. At least, not for long. His lengthy career has been variously documented by some mostly excellent recordings. His movement from station-to-station in his creative life can be fairly well mapped-out by listening to the sequence of albums.

But what matters right now is a recent release out on CIMP (400) of Burton and a Quartet-Quintet, recorded in the States in 2011, namely Burton Greene with R*time, Burton's Time.

It is a Burton Greene increasingly occupied with, and singularly original in the composition zone. There are four Greene pieces, four more co-written with Silke Rollig, and one by Silke. They have angular memorability, have a post-Mingus-like arc to their melodic-harmonic unfolding (as Bob Rusch suggests in the liners), but nevertheless occupy their own special place.

The compositions are freely and imaginatively realized by a seasoned and nicely blended ensemble that includes of course Burton on piano, Reut Regev on trombone, Adam Lane on bass, and Igal Foni on drums. Michael Attias on alto makes it a quintet for the last half of the program.

These are excellent players all, perhaps the biggest surprise in Reut Regev, who is a trombonist with a definite original presence. I have not heard her previously and she impresses me as a player.

The emphasis throughout is on the compositions and how to play them freely while leaving room within the interstices for improvisational sequences. That happens consistently and effectively.

Burton's Time is an album that stays in the mind after hearing. It is new jazz that moves forward with Burton's special sense of form and structure-- free, yes, but also rigorous and memorable from a melodic-structural point of view.

It is an achievement, certainly one of Burton's best in the last decade. I do recommend it strongly.

Rodrigo Amado Motion Trio & Peter Evans, Live in Lisbon

Today we revel a bit in the second volume of the meeting of trumpet firebrand Peter Evans and tenormaster Rodrigo Amado and his Motion Trio, Live in Lisbon (No Business NBLP 75). The first, a CD, I posted on last month, July 10th to be exact.

The companion album up today takes on the LP/Vinyl format in a limited edition of 300. It's a live set with plenty of the torque of the companion volume. Peter on trumpet, Rodrigo, tenor sax, with Miguel Mira, cello, and Gabriel Ferrandini, drums, show you they aren't about to let up anytime soon. Perhaps never! In an infinite incandescence? Anything is possible and as long as I could stay around and dig it, why not?

Seriously though this one gives you hot blasts of freedom and quiet gusts of playfulness in proportion and balance, the quiet affording a change of pace, then more heat! Everybody shows what they are made of, with of course Rodrigo and Peter sculpting sound brilliantly with no let up on note choice. Miguel and Gabriel give you a special sort of rhythm section that springs forward and falls back definitively and dynamically.

Peter seems in an especially puckish mood with full use of sound color. Rodrigo follows up and comes back with some torrid heat that puts everyone over the top. Amado and Evans are some of the very finest practitioners in avant improvising today and Live in Lisbon gives you more reasons why.

This album won't be around long at 300 copies so I'd get it quickly if I didn't already have it. But the CD reviewed last month is especially essential so...really you might do well with both!! That's what I'd recommend.

It's an important go-round for this quartet. I hope they get together again soon, because they have chemistry in abundance and really rise to the occasion of intersection.

Highly recommended!

Brian Groder Trio, with Michael Bisio and Jay Rosen

I have been appreciating Brian Groder for a while now. He plays trumpet very architectonically. What? Architectonic...having a clearly defined structure. There is form in his improvising which is related to his composing. We get Brian's architectonics laid bare, so to speak, on his new trio album, with the self-explanatory title Brian Groder Trio (Latham 5901).

There's one piece by Joanne Brackeen; the rest are by Groder. He choose well in including bassist Michael Bisio and drummer Jay Rosen. Both respond with brilliance to free architectonics. Michael is one of the very foremost inventive bassists on the scene today and Jay a great drummer who does not always get the recognition he should, though as part of Trio X he gets exposure, surely. He sounds better and better these days.

So Jay responds beautifully and contributes his special time and color to this trio. Brian and Michael interact with exceptional grace and inventiveness. Both play out of the compositional implications of each number in interactive bliss and on their own.

The performances are not to be missed. The compositions hit you in the ears and the trio through-improvises on them with a musical logic that is outstanding.

Do not wait! Get this one because it rings out as one of the best this year!

Elliott Sharp Aggregat "Quintet"

Elliott Sharp has made his reputation as an avant and, yes, a blues guitarist and jazz composer of complete originality. In the early days he appeared on winds mostly as a realization of compositional objectives, not as much as a soloist per se. But lately he has taken on the wind playing role rather seriously. The CD up today gives you some of that with his group Aggregat and album "Quintet" (Clean Feed 288CD).

Elliott mans the tenor and soprano saxes and bass clarinet like he was born to it. There is originality and there is a noteful flow. He is joined by Nate Wooley on trumpet, Terry L. Green on trombone, Brad Jones on contrabass and Ches Smith on drums. This is an extraordinarily capable outfit and the avant, open-form free jazz that results has both compositional clout and expressive collective and individual improvisations worthy of your attention.

There is a new new thing out rootsiness underpinning the music that then gets transformed and reworked the Elliott Sharp way, meaning that it has the originality we expect from him, but less of the sensory-motor machine-poetry of his earlier work and more of a collective series of clamorous pivot points that show excellence in their collective improv qualities yet also have structured articulations of a compositional nature.

Everyone here is beautifully creative within the structures set down and capable of a personally inventive absolute freedom as well.

The music is serious in the best sense--buoyantly expressive with structural smarts.

I'd say it was a milestone but I suspect Elliott has more coming in this vein, so I'd better say that this is some breakthrough outness. Heartily recommended for those who like their jazz on the edge, warm and collectively boisterous.

Nate Wooley, Hugo Antunes, Chris Corsano, MALUS

Trumpeter Nate Wooley is a player you should never take for granted. Because when you do he'll come along and surprise you. He has a kind of consistency of tone, sure, but he operates in the realm often enough of truly free improvisation, so that you just don't know what he'll do next.

That comes through clearly in the excellent trio recording of MALUS (No Business LP 73) a limited vinyl release.

Nate is joined by bassist Hugo Antunes and drummer Chris Corsano. You may well be familiar with them from their various recordings and associations. They sound well-primed and on the mark here.

The record gives us seven short- to medium-length improvisations that have varying degrees of structure and freedom. All three players are out front at various times in a very democratic give-and-take.

In a free session like this the key will nearly always reside in the interest-level of the solos, both collectively and individually, and of course the group dynamic as a whole. Both are high in this recording.

So needless to say it's something I think you'll dig if you are into the free scene.

Gary Hassay with William Parker and Daniel Carter, Emanate

Saxophonist and free jazz luminary Gary Hassay kindly sent me a burn of a set he did last summer with iconic bassist William Parker and multi-instrumental notable Daniel Carter. It was a live gig in Eaton, Pennsylvania. Though Gary is in the process of landing a label deal and so this is not yet available I was motivated to write about it early because of the satisfaction I've gotten listening to it. This is not standard practice with me of course but I make an exception because I hope you all will be motivated to anticipate its release.

The title of the disk is Emanate.

William Parker sounds beautiful throughout. It is hard to imagine a better catalyst in an intimate setting of this kind, opening up the harmonic spectrum with well chosen, woody, forceful yet rich bass sound.

Daniel Carter speaks in salient musical phrases in the three-way dialog; he plays flute, trumpet and saxes.

And Gary is utterly primed. The breathy outness of his alto here is far from canny (uncanny, then) and extraordinarily lucid. And he heats on up to a firey climax as he and his co-creators get the spirit. There is also a brief spot for his overtone singing which must be heard to be appreciated.

Well that's all I'll say for now. It is one of Gary's very best for his well-expressed alto passion--and in no small way via the inspiration the trio generates internally and outwardly as a whole.

I hope someone puts this one out quickly so you all can hear it. It is a winner!

Pandelis Karayorgis Quintet, Circuitous

Boston-based Pandelis Karayorgis is a post-Monk avant pianist with poise, great ideas, real torque and feeling conjoined with a lively musical mind. And he writes compositions that reflect his angular way and stay with you long after you've heard them. For the recording Pandelis Karayorgis Quintet Circuitous (Driff 1304) he gathers together a significant group of Chicago jazzmen in a studio date recorded there. These are musicians often associated together (see previous reviews on this site) and their conjunction with Pandelis is most fortuitous, fortunate, fabulous, productive.

The musicians involved are Dave Rempis, tenor, alto and baritone, Keefe Jackson, tenor sax, bass and contrabass clarinet, Nate McBride, contrabass and Frank Rosaly, drums, cutting edge musicians all.

The set involves all Karayorgis compositions. They set the tone for the improvisations and inspire all to some of their best work--the powerful Rempis, puckish, ascerbic Jackson, angular Karayorgis, deep exploratory McBride and the wise ranging swing and free intelligence of Rosaly. This is symbiosis at its best: the Chicago artist clearly get a jolt from their association with Pandelis and vice versa.

A fine date, great example of Karayorgis today and a testament to the creative thrust of four exceptional Chicago improvisers. Grab this one.

Wheelhouse, Boss of the Plains

We return today to Dave Rempis' kickoff of his new label with release two, another good one. It's Rempis on alto and baritone, Jason Adasiewicz on vibraphone, and Nate McBride on acoustic bass under the collective name Wheelhouse. The album is Boss of the Plains (Aerophonic 002).

The threesome has played together since 2005; since 2008 they have chosen to play exclusively in the collective free zone. This is their first recording but understandably it does not sound like a beginning. The years spent exploring free musical terrain together carry with them a development of a tripartite approach that by now is very much seasoned, aged, tempered-weathered (always a consideration in Chicago) and burnished.

So there is most definitely a sound that has come about, a chamber freedom that has heat but also space and mood. You can hear it fully on Boss of the Plains. Of course all three have gotten the respect of peers, critics and audiences alike in their own right.

Adasiewicz by now is well-established as a star of the vibes with much of something new to say within a lineage of important stylists on the instrument. He is not derivative in the least but he clearly carries that lineage with him as an unstated basis from which he springs highly and with agility. Nate McBride of course is simply one of the most inventive and complete contrabassists on the scene. And Dave Rempis is at the top of the list of the new Chicago saxophonists, no small feat given the wealth of horn talent there. He carries with him a feeling for the avant tradition of those that have come before (and right back to the earliest period of jazz at that) but he has an exceptionally fertile imagination and so creates inventive line and tone universes time and again. He is one inspired cat. And with him playing the baritone here as well as alto there is a second sound to bring his ideas and timbres further to the fore.

So that is the basic set of player-ingredients and something of what they are about. And on this album they give us a generous set that shows you how far afield their explorations can and do carry them. There are free balladic episodes that showcase the quieter side, and in that probably no one can touch them for sheer free eloquence. Then there are the more heated moments and here too they come off as masters of their own sound and pacing.

There no doubt could be more I might say here about the music, but the point is the music more than my saying. So I will leave off with the idea that this is chamber jazz fully into the future of the present, here now and I do believe, here in the nows to come. It's important and it is satisfying. Give it a good listen and I think you'll hear what I am hearing!

Jeffrey Hayden Shurdut, Imaginary Control Systems

One of the more unusual and more interesting of Jeffrey Hayden Shurdut's JaZtTapes CD-Rom releases surely is Imaginary Control Systems (JaZtTapes CD-026). It is that by virtue of the chemistry on display between the trio members captured here.

Jeffrey plays the piano throughout, comping in an out way, doing all-over barrages, taking off from motival kernels of musical thought. Lukas Ligeti acts as a free-foil with drumming that can pulsate or go into a-rhythmic zones. And there is the late Luther Thomas on alto--in a Luther-as-post-Bird realm, quoting snatches of Bird-dom, developing melodic motifs that have an out-bop feel to them. The three together enter special places that are pretty rarified.

It was 2007, NYC, and Luther was to live only two more years. This seems to me one of his more important later recordings for all the reasons mentioned. The music is very free and loose and yet there are moments underpinned by structure. There are more musical-structural factors underlining the blowing going on than with the everyday sort of stream-of-consciousness mode. Now of course the stream approach is completely valid and all three players are known for it. It's just that there there are indeed kinds of "Imaginary Control Systems" put into play here.

For all that it makes for a very interesting listen. Get more info on this and other JaZtTapes by going to http://www.janstrom.se/6.-recordings/6.3.-jazt-tapes-6267605

Alexis Parsons & Connie Crothers, Hippin'

Alexis Parson won some polls last year because she is very good. Connie Crothers wins polls and has for years because she is central to the music. Put the two together and let them freely interact without any song material except, towards the end, "Wild is the Wind."

Now of course Connie playing free is nothing new--but again of course it is nearly always extraordinary. "Free" vocals are not something you hear a great deal of. We musn't forget Abbey Lincoln and Patty Waters, two of the first, and there have been others, some excellent, that have followed, but not really a huge number of them.

After Ms. Parsons did her album of songs a while back (which I covered) I knew she was strong. But for a free date? Here we have the two and their Hippin' (New Artists 1047) doing just that. It turns out Alexis is very poised, inventive and personally unique in this mode too.

If everything works well for a date like this, the people involved have to be very attuned to what they will do. That's most certainly so. Then what they do needs to have interest, trajectory, drama, and so forth. There never is any doubt with what Connie would do here, because she is a monster improviser-artist. And so that happens to be the case once again. And Alexis Parsons gives you the surprise of having very much her own way of getting free and out there.

This is a winner! Outside and thoughtful in excellent ways.

Construction Party, Instruments of Change

Today, a quartet recording in the avant vein by four formidable exponents of the new jazz who, as it turns out, work very well together. They call the quartet Construction Party. The album is dubbed Instruments of Change (Not Two 852-2)

It's Forbes Graham on trumpet, Dave Rempis, alto, Pandelis Karayorgis, piano, and Luther Gray, drums. Now that works out well. Graham has good melodic improv ideas that range over the whole horn. Dave Rempis, as followers or the music know, is his own man on alto. Pandelis Karayorgis is one of the important pianists out there now with a percussive attack and, important for this bass-less group, an ability to play inventive, innovative lines with both hands independently. So he sometimes has a kind of pianistic bass line going that complements the drumming. The latter is handled adeptly by Luther Gray, who has power and a very effective time-freetime sense.

There are eight numbers; each bandmember composes two. They are of the abstracted avant head sort and work well in setting up the blowing. There are moments where Rempis and Karayorgis solo together that got my attention, but everybody has a chance to intermingle collectively and individually in good ways.

It's top-notch new avant jazz. So of course I recommend it.