TranceFormation, In Concert, Andrea Wolper, Connie Crothers, Ken Filiano

It takes musicians of real imagination and ability to launch music involving 100% improvisation and have it satisfy the listener on every level. Of course with an artist of the stature of pianist-conceptualist Connie Crothers, you know you are going to get that along with her extraordinary originality and pianism. With contrabassist Ken Filiano, the same applies. I'll admit that vocalist and prose-poetess Andrea Wolper was an unknown factor for me.

So when I opened the package that contained the three artists together on the CD TranceFormation in Concert (New Artists 1054CD) I wasn't quite sure what it would be like.

Now that I've listened a bunch of times I am happy to say that the CD made a Wolper believer out of me. She improvises recitations, creates rhythmic patter that hangs together as content as well as sound pattern, and she sings and does sound color vocalisms that sound right and show a very inventive creative soul at work.

Combine Andrea with Connie and Ken, and something special results. That's In Concert. It's Ms. Wolpers, Ms. Crothers and Mr. Filiano at their creative best. And it shows you in the process that "jazz vocals" can be whatever they might be and be very good, without resorting to the usual standards and scatting formations so prevalent these days.

That's the case, and on top of that you have a very wonderful three-way interaction at work here. Inspiring improvisation at its best!

M'lumbo, Tuning In To Tomorrow

No doubt there will be "jazz purists" who will dislike this album on the grounds that there are things that don't belong. Collage, voice and other sampling, electricity, hip-hop elements, things that relate to drums n' bass, synthesizers, oh you know, the litany of things.

But Tuning In To Tomorrow (Pursuance 04) by M'lumbo works. It works as a kind of large band multi-voiced paean to retro-futurism.

There's the core band: Robert Jordan Ray Flateau on keys and sampling, Cecil Young on trumpet, Dehran Duckworth on congas and percussion, Jaz Sawyer on drums, Brian O'Neill, guitar and sampling. Sax players Vin Veloso and Paul Alexandre Meurens head up the reed section. Then there are two additional horns that expand the band from time-to-time: special guest Jane Ira Bloom on soprano and Adrian Mira on alto and clarinet.

There are some nice charts for larger band that coexist with the samples. They are retro-future related and so fit in well. There are funk/jazz-rock rhythmic feels, good solos when called for, serious swinging and a kind of psychedelic-electric ambiance and general outness at times. The Dehran-Jaz nexus is something good to hear, too.

It's not quite like anything else out there. The first listen may find you scratching your head. But keep listening. There is a lot to absorb and once you start doing that, you'll start hearing it as a whole.

These folks are into something.

Nobuyasu Furuya Quintet, The General (Complete Version)

I reviewed the original LP version of Nobuyasu Furuya's The General last June 5th (see that posting). It turns out that to fit on LP the full version had to be shortened a bit. As good as the LP is, the full CD version is even better. But it's only around as far as I know as a Japanese import. Amazon Japan has it http://www.amazon.co.jp

The Nu Band, Relentlessness, Live at the Sunset, Roy Campbell, Mark Whitecage, Joe Fonda, Lou Grassi

When a very good band in the improvisatory arts achieves a certain comfort level playing together, in some cases that may take years, the music they produce when they are on the mark can be both very together collectively, and individually on a very high level.

That was certainly the case with the Nu Band when they recorded earlier this year at the Sunset in Paris. The resultant CD Relentlessness (Disques Futura et Marge 49) bears this out quite nicely.

For it has a great group dynamic going, loosely swings and speaks poetically and coherently, and gives you some of the best playing of Roy Campbell, Jr., Mark Whitecage, Joe Fonda, and Lou Grassi on record.

There are effective compositions by all the band members, and some sterling improvisations from the trumpet, reeds, contrabass and drums. Each artist is an original stylist of course, and the band has a direct kind of improv immediacy that comes about when all is right. This music, understandably given the players' deep roots in the music and long time immersion in it, is the evolution and extension of the new jazz, the new improv, as it stands today, state-of-the-art.

So naturally I would advise you to hear this one!

Matthew Shipp, Greatest Hits

Late next month, Matthew Shipp will release a Greatest Hits (Thirsty Ear 57205.2) compilation covering some of his best work from 2000 to the present. Eleven albums are represented.

And listening to this compendium makes at least one thing clear (if not many things): Matthew Shipp has been a critical force in the new jazz not by holding steady to the same routines and patterns that have made for new jazz orthodoxy, but by opening up to the sounds around him, by not following trends, but by making trends follow him.

So we have not only Matthew Shipp the masterful, innovative pianist, but also Matthew Shipp the composer, the conceptual innovator.

Listen to "Cohesion," by his trio of the time of William Parker and Gerald Cleaver, plus Khan Jamal on vibes and Flam on synths/programming. The drums have that drums n' bass sound--very funky but also electronically worked over. Yet listening to the piece you do not feel that this is Shipp gone commercial, any more than Trane's quartet sounded that way doing "Chim Chim Cheree." It's Matthew Shipp incorporating new elements into his music--but it's always foremost his music and not anyone else's, by any standards.

So throughout the compilation you get solo piano, trios, and larger configurations, fascinating to hear broken into a more-or-less chronological sequence. It's Shipp the pianist at the top of his conceptual game, the artist free to create with the great players he has surrounded himself with, free to evolve his direction as he sees fit.

That, as the late Sam Rivers defined it, is what "free" is about. The artist is free to follow what path he or she chooses, where the music swings, takes it out into open air, or works within hip-hop/funk/rock rhythmic feels, or records with a large orchestra. Listening to the thirteen years of music making so nicely represented on this disk, you feel that Matthew Shipp has been true to himself, and what that is speaks truth to us all. This is important music, pianistically, group-wise, compositionally and conceptually.

So grab a copy next month if you don't know these sides!

Nik Bartsch's Ronin Live

I have been following Nik Bartsch's musical development with interest. He is a kind of minimalist and his ensemble Ronin plays a music that proffers a mesmeric sort of jazz-rock. The current lineup consists of Bartsch on piano and Fender Rhodes, plus bass clarinet/alto sax, one or two electric basses, drums and percussion.

The latest, a 2-CD set entitled Nik Bartsch's Ronin Live (ECM 2302/03), brings us his fullest musical flowering to date.

Imagine the classical minimalism of Steve Reich in his first African-influenced period, with grooved repetition and multi-stranded polyrhythms abounding, then give it Nik's own personal twist and have it performed by a jazz-rock sort of ensemble.

The ensemble has gotten fully into the total effect of this music and each instrumentalist's part within it--and created some really compelling live versions. There doesn't appear to be a lot of improvisation in this music per se, so far as I can tell, at least not in terms of a set solo routine--it's more concerned with realizing the interlocking parts and then allowing for a certain amount of improvisation within the structures realized.

But it is such a fascinating set of grooves that you don't worry so much about expectations, but sit back and let the whole matrix give you a jolt. And yes, this music is very funky in a very advanced sense.

I've been enthralled with almost every minute of this recording, from the first hearing on. If you are into advanced grooves, minimalism you can dance to, I suspect you'll feel the same way.

Frank Wright Quartet, Blues for Albert Ayler, 1977

Frank Wright may not be a name that has crossed over from avant jazz circles to the general public (and how many have?) but he was a moving force on tenor from nearly the very beginning and the body of recordings he left behind still sound fresh and engaging.

And now ESP has released one we have not known of before, Blues for Albert Ayler, a long set recorded at Ali's Alley in 1977.

The band is into the moment in a good way. Rashied Ali pushes continuously with his open-form, complex freetime. He sounds very motivated. He puts the band in overdrive. James "Blood" Ulmer is in an out groove, inspired. Benny Wilson toils steadily behind the bass, giving the ground base a solid foundation while the others soar. And Frank Wright gets his tenor into the stratosphere and stays there.

This is very high-level free jazz, the recorded sound is decent and it is a very welcome addition to Frank Wright's discography. Quite worth having if you are into the avant roots.