Rich Halley's Quartet Goes Long and Strong on "Requiem For A Pit Viper"

Tenorist-band- leader-tunesmith Rich Halley turns in one his very best efforts on the new CD Requiem for A Pit Viper (Pine Eagle 003). It's Rich plus trombonist Michael Vlatkovich, bassist Chris Reed and drummer Carson Halley in a long set of originals with lots of room for solos. As is generally the case with Rich's band concept there is a distinct post-Ornettian vibe. The pianoless group generally keeps the time going and freeboppingly rides atop in their own way--calling on a tradition that looks back to some of Sonny Simmons's (and Prince Lasha's) classic groups. In other words Rich and Michael play themselves with linear thrust; the rhythm section play themselves within the loose swing and rocktime of the genre.

Halley's son Carson puts a good showing together and moves the group along with dialogic use of the full drum kit; bassist Clyde Reed has a big Hadenesque sound and he walks with power. Michael's trombone works well with Richard's tenor, both showing the inventive fire and freedom that position them as some of the West Coast's most important free-avant figures active today.

Requiem has it all happening. This is a good one to grab as an intro to Rich Halley's music.

Children of the Blue Supermarket: Dan Raphael's Poetry Melds with Rich Halley's Jazz

Poetry-Jazz collaborations can vary wildly from the "Why?" to the "Wow!" The poetry of course should be worth hearing. But equally, the recitation should have a dynamism of pitch-speech performance excitement. Then of course the jazz needs to relate to all that and in the end be jazz that's worth hearing alongside the poetic meanings evoked.

Children of the Blue Supermarket (Pine Eagle 002) qualifies on each of those levels. The CD was recorded during two live appearances in 2008 and 2009 at the Penofin Jazz Festival in Potter Valley, California. Dan Raphael does his poetry; Rich Halley responds on tenor, Carson Halley on drums.

Raphael has the hipster delivery and urgency that his postmodern poetry demands. Despair, hope, surreal-real imagery and inner-outer responses to the decaying "service"-oriented post-industrial nightmare tumble together in a series of thought-images that have a stream of poet-riff style of presentation. And that seems right. Rich and Carson Halley respond with a post-Ornettian freedom that makes for good listening with or without the poetry. The Blue Supermarket works as a totality. The poems, the urgent recitation, the counter narrative of end-modernity on a purely musical level, all of it fits. All of it works. It's hip. It's sincere. It forces you out of an everyday thought mode and into a rarified world where there are combinations like the ones we experience in everyday life, but put together in "peculiar" ways to get us thinking and feeling differently. It's a winner. "Safety is smelling bad and moving slowly," Mr. Raphael tells us. Good to remember.

Rich Halley Teams with Bobby Bradford in New Live Quartet Recording

Tenor-man Rich Halley has recently released a new recording of a lively quartet featuring himself and the legendary Bobby Bradford as the two-horn front line, with Clyde Reed and Carson Hailey ably taking care of the rhythm section roles on bass and drums, respectively. Specifics: the CD is matter-of-factly titled Live at the Penofin Jazz Festival (Pine Eagle 001)

This is post-Ornettian jazz. It can swing or go into looser free-time, and it conceives of the solo-ensemble interactions as subject to implied and/or overtly stated linear harmonic-melodic continuity. That doesn't necessarily mean that there are changes that are played over all of the time, but implies a relation to the changes-bop that went before it.

Now I happen to be quite attracted to that sort of thing, as many are. What's nice about this one is that it puts it all together with worthy head-structures, strongly personal blowing from the two principals, and a good dynamic from the ensemble. Rich and Bobby sound especially good together, and Mr. Halley is right up there as a soloist worth checking out.

This is a great way to spend some listening time. Recommended.