The Rempis Percussion Quartet, Cash and Carry

Dave Rempis and his Aerophonic label have been giving us some excellent Chicago-style avant jazz improvisation. The present-day Chicago style is as contentful and distinctive as deep-dish pizza, I suppose you could say. The Dave Rempis contingency gathers together some of the best players and opens up special territories of sound with every new release, it seems.

The Dave Rempis Percussion Quartet continues where the earlier Aerophonic releases leave off--in this case with two long cuts of live music from Chicago's Hungry Brain club, featuring Dave on alto-tenor-baritone, the busily significant bassist Ingebrigt Haker Flaten, and two of the best drummers active on the scene, Tim Daisy and Frank Rosaly. Cash and Carry (Aerophonic 010) is the title of the CD.

This August 31, 2014 set celebrated ten years of the group's existence as it also marked the end of that year's Chicago Jazz Fest, so that on hand was a crowd of advanced jazz lovers who migrated from the outdoor festival to the club.

Judging by the recording, the crowd was treated to some superior music that night. All four are in full-bore expressive mode. Dave is on fire and has a great deal to say, Ingebrigt plays with much authority and imagination, and of course Tim and Frank give us the freewheeling thrusts of power and subtlety we expect from them, only doubled, so to say, by their dual generation.

The open freedom of the two lengthy, in-the-moment performances has everything to recommend: solo excellence, group dynamics and interactions at a high peak, plenty of ideas and that special something you get from dedicated avantists when everything clicks.

If you don't know Dave Rempis well Cash and Carry is an excellent place to begin. Those who already dig Rempis and the new Chicagoans will find this one essential. Yes!

The Rempis/Daisy Duo, Second Spring, Dave Rempis, Tim Daisy

Chicago saxophone notable Dave Rempis continues on with his worthy series of recordings on his Aerophonic label with a couple of new releases. Up today is the Rempis/Daisy Duo and their Second Spring (Aerophonic 003). Dave gets a lot of music out of his alto, tenor and baritone saxophones; Tim Daisy responds in kind on drums/percussion.

Both are key members of a Chicago group of avant jazz musicians who tend to play together. We've heard from many of them in various configurations on these pages, but never these two in duo. It usually helps in these intimate situations if the players know each other's playing well, if they have spend a good deal of time playing together. That's certainly the case with Dave and Tim. The musical sympathies are there to hear in these improvised sequences. This is free blowing of good provenance--they come from inspired places within and the spirit-feel does not flag. Both show why they are fully themselves and in-demand players on the Chicago avant scene.

Second Spring showcases Rempis and Daisy in great form. It is a straightforward blowing romp that gets rolling from the start and does not stop until the last phrase is played. Check it out and get some good sounds!

Ken Vandermark, Made to Break, Provoke

Made to Break moves mountains. Virtual mountains. With sound. Music. It's Ken Vandermark's new group, who improvise around structures in ways Ken has devised but there is no need to go into exactly how in this space. The liner notes to today's release explain. Ken's lately been influenced by punk rock and Ethiopian music and in some ways that gets in here.

There is a combination of electro-acoustic sounds (Cristof Kurzmann) and instrumentalists (Tim Daisy, drums, Ken on reeds and Devin Hoff, electric bass).

Provoke (Clean Feed 273) is a nice set with three long numbers recorded live in Lisbon. The band gets a full chance to find their maximum level of expression and they surely do.

This is avant improv that swells, rocks, grooves and explodes in very nice ways. Hoff plays electric bass in a foundational but innovative way. He's excellent, with a big sound. Tim Daisy is a drummer who can go anywhere and do it with his own kind of authority. He does. Ken you I am sure know and he is strong and unpredictable as always. Christof's electro-acoustics add plenty of color and a thickening texture, at times sounding like more than one voice, which of course is what you can do with such possibilities, and he does it all well.

This set is an adventure and a challenge--to be free, to be more than acoustic, to be big in sound and to be small too in contrast. It's a hip outing. Out with hippening happening.

Add this to your Maestro Vandermark corpus and you will be glad you did. I am!

The Rempis Percussion Quartet, Phalanx

Dave Rempis, a saxophonist composer-conceptualist of high repute and attainment, has launched his own label, Aerophonic, and gives us as first offering a 2-CD set of his Rempis Percussion Quartet live. Phalanx (Aerophonic 001) pits Dave on alto, tenor and baritone with a formidable gathering of Ingebrigt Haker Flaten on bass and the excellent two-drum pairing of Tim Daisy and Frank Rosaly.

This makes for some very together free burning and a killer rhythm section. The quartet gets a disk each for two live sets, one in Milwaukee, one in Antwerp.

It's a matter of extended free blowing and a fine thing it is. Dave sounds great as always on tenor and alto but I don't recall hearing much of him on baritone, and that is a real treat. Ingebrigt as one can always expect brings a busy and smart bass approach to the mix and the one-two punch of Daisy and Rosaly is everything you could ask for. Not surprising given what we have heard them do in one drummer situations, but as a two-part percussion team they give complexity and depth to the blowing that sends it all over the top.

This is a real-deal scorcher! A great kick-off to the label and plenty of heat throughout. Dave Rempis takes off in style!

Aram Shelton and Arrive Present an Interesting Program of Quartet Music on "There Was"

For those of you like me who are digging some of the interesting ensembles loosely based in Chicago and taking a post-Dolphy trip through composi- tional-improvisational in & out territory, the new CD by Arrive should appeal. Altoist Aram Shelton has a wry sort of pluck to his solo work. He now resides in California where he is a part of the group Cylinder (see review on these pages), but he reunited with some of the Chicago luminaries for There Was (Clean Feed 217). Vibraphonist Jason Adasiewicz has real presence on the contemporary scene. As a sideman with a group such as this there is a Bobby Hutcherson spatial looseness to his comping that does a great deal to open the music up and he soloes with good taste and intelligence. (His solo recordings, also reviewed on these pages, put him in a more chimingly extroverted zone, but that is another story). Bassist Jason Roebke and drummer Tim Daisy are mainstays. They combine the ability to get inside the structure of a composition with a playful freedom that suits the context well.

The compositions are rich and complex, yet bring a modern jazz rootedness that pulls it together in the best tradition of the outside Blue Notes of the classic period.

This is an excellent ensemble outing. Highly recommended.

Jeb Bishop, Dave Rempis and The Engines, 2006

If I wake up early on the morning of July 4th to get some additional reviews done, it stands to reason that I am here right now to praise the music, not to bury it. Otherwise, why would I bother?

And so today I get in a review of some great music that, since I bought a copy of the CD when I had money to spend and then somehow never got it into the review pile until now, gets covered a little late. The Engines already have a second album. The self-titled first (Okkadisk 12057) is not the kind of record that needs complete currency to justify a discussion. This is music that, one assumes with good reason, will have relevancy for many years to come. At least that's how it grabs me.

You've probably noticed, if you follow what's been happening in Chicago, that there is a loosely interrelated group of jazz player-composers that tend to seek each other out. They are known for being avant but also greatly concerned with compositional and arranged ensemble music that gives equal weight to individual solos, collective improvisations, and challenging group routines that do not end with the conventional "head," if there is one.

The Engines are an excellent example of this new Chicago school. As of this first recording they consisted of four Chicagoland heavyweights: Jeb Bishop, trombone, Dave Rempis, alto-tenor-baritone, Nate McBride, bass, and Tim Daisy, drums. Each writes interesting charts, for this album as well as in general, and are notably important sorts of players.

And all of that is amply in evidence on this first recording. It strikes a beautiful balance between freedom and pre-thought, spontaneity and structure, expression and deliberation. And they do it all in a stylistically singular way. They come out of some heavy, OUT Chicago traditions (like Hal Russell, Art Ensemble, others) and extend and transform them to suit their musical personalities. And they do it well. Very very well.

A great record!