Noah Kaplan Quartet, Descendants

Tenor saxist Noah Kaplan graduated from the New England Conservatory, where he quite obviously studied with the late Joe Manieri, and now emerges with an interesting album centering on his quartet, Descendants (HatOLOGY 688). It's a freewheeling avant date with very nice collective and individual moments from Joe Morris, guitar, Giacomo Merega, electric bass, Jason Nazary, drums and of course Kaplan.

I found I first had to get used to Noah's playing style, which uses glissandos and quarter tones along with bursts of more "conventional" avant phrasing. It's ultimately well worth hearing what he does here, though it takes a while to get into. Joe Morris's chromatic atonality is well suited as a countervoice to Kaplan and he sounds quite nice on this session, as always. Merega and Nazary open things up quite a bit in the free domain and so give the front line the ultimate flexibility to weave their spells.

It takes a few listens to get acclimated. Then, if you are like me, you dig it.

Flow Trio, "Set Theory" Live at the Stone, Sounding Better Than Ever

The Flow Trio do that. Flow. They flow in a free manner. They flow because each player sets up the other players with what he does, allowing them to invent fertile extended collective improvisations. You can hear that at great length on their Set Theory: Live at the Stone (Ayler CD-107).

Drummer Charles Downs flows in the density and speed of his free-timing, both creating momentum and responding to it. Joe Morris as bassist is ideal for this sort of set. He ranges widely in note choice, rhythmic happenstance, and sound color so that Louie Belogenis has a huge variety of choices that would work with what Joe is doing. Louie has that big, dramatic tenor sound that has a resemblance to classic Sam Rivers, but flows and darts in and out of the mix in an original way. His soprano has force and clarity.

This is free music of excellence. It is probably their best disk yet. You wont want to miss this one if you dig avant sax trios in a good place. Do not miss them!