CIMPhonia 1998 Part 2, Lest We Forget

I reviewed CIMPhonia Part One just about a year ago on these pages. Today we look at the second volume. It has the same lineup, essentially what is known today as Trio X (Joe McPhee, soprano sax and trumpet, Dominic Duval, acoustic bass, and Jay Rosen, drums) plus some well-chosen bright lights of avant jazz: Mark Whitecage, reeds, Paul Smoker, trumpet, David Prentice, violin, and the late Peter Kowald, acoustic bass.

As before the churning virtuoso two-bass tandem is one of the first things that catches your ear. But of course there's more than that. It's a free-avant set of exploratory excellence. The three horn (or really four when you include Prentice's violin) configuration of McPhee, Whitecage and Smoker (and Prentice) gives collective girth to the improvisations, and each understandably has much in the way of ideas and invention. They occupy the top spectrum of the music, the basses the bottom, and Jay Rosen's always thoughtful drumming rests somewhere squarely in the middle.

Solo moments emerge from the collectivity and then submerge. This is all about the power of seven improv gigantics interacting without reference to anything but their own imaginations. Like the first part, it is state-of-the-art free improv, a rather unsung gem of 1998. Click on the CIMP link in the right-hand column on this page for more information or to grab a copy.

McPhee, Whitecage, Smoker, Prentice, Kowald, Duval, Rosen, 1998

Time flies whether you are having fun or not. So as I listen to CIMPhonia 1998, Part One (CIMP 173) and revel in its improvisatory glow it comes as a shock to me to realize that this recording was made 12 years ago. It transcends time, so that's not the point. It hits me, though, that '98 is now part of the somewhat distant past.

For the music contained on this CD it only underscores how great improvisation has and will outlast the time zone in which it was created. And with Trio X currently touring, it also underscores that the three members (Joe McPhee, soprano, tenor, trumpet; Dominic Duval, acoustic bass; Jay Rosen, drums) have been interacting together for a long time.

CIMPhonia 1998, Part One is a more all-encompassing collective improv date though, so the three are intermingled with some very potent cats: Mark Whitecage on reeds, Paul Smoker, trumpet, David Prentice, violin, and the late Peter Kowald on bass.

The group goes through a goodly contrast of moods and modes, from the "sunrise on the Delta" sort of undulations of "Estrus" to all the sorts of permutations and trajectories artists of this caliber can conjure.

Everybody sounds great and they mesh together quite well. To me though it's the horns as a unit and the two basses interlocking that make for especially remarkable listening.

Perhaps you've missed this one. Don't. In its own sweet way it is a milestone for improv, circa 1998.

Click on the CIMP link on this page to get details.