Glenn Wilson, Timely

When we mentally list the names of living baritone sax titans chances are we do not think to list Glenn Wilson, yet he has been doing excellent work for decades. He deserves wider recognition, surely. The reasons why he is relatively unsung are various and part of that has to do with not always living in locations where recognition is easy to gain. The rest may be just a product of chance. Either way it is very good to see him back on the recorded scene with a live album of his band recorded at the Havana Nights Jazz Club in Virginia Beach, circa 2012. Timely (Cadence Jazz 1255) is the apt title of the album. His reappearance is definitely that.

It's Glenn and his band playing a couple of originals and a good selection of numbers by jazzmen both well-covered and less so: Wayne Shorter, Larry Willis, Pepper Adams, Bob Dorough and Bob Belden. It is a treat to hear the band do an instrumental version of Dorough's "Nothing Like You," which Bob of course made well known when he sung it as part of a mid-sixties Miles Davis album. All the material suits the band well and allows them to launch some nice solos.

Glenn is joined by John D'earth on Trumpet and Flugel, a talented voice in the bop-and-after brassy mode. John Toomey plays some very good, harmonically rich and line savvy modern mainstream piano, and the rhythm team of Jimmy Masters on bass and Tony Martucci, drums, have the drive, expertise and sensibility to get everything swinging right.

The band sounds classic, in a '60s Blue Note-ish way, old school but with their own solo personalities and distinctive rhythm section presence. D'earth and Toomey solo extensively and well, but the primary attraction in the end is Glenn Wilson for his considerably inventive solo presence, his ability to weave beautiful lines with that big baritone sound.

The set is an excellent one, with a generous playing time and some consistently inspired playing. It has the fire of conviction and shows us why Glenn Wilson and his band are something to hear and appreciate. Glenn can PLAY! I am glad to have this one.

Tim Berne's Snakeoil, You've Been Watching Me

Tim Berne and his ensemble Snakeoil are entering a phase of full-flower. That is on the new album You've Been Watching Me (ECM B0022874-02). The ensemble engages in a musical direction that's been implied and partly realized in their very worthy previous albums. But it seems that the implications have moved forward to a fruition that places them in a stylistic zone very characteristic of Tim Berne's musical tendencies but now squarely situated in very much their own space.

The band consists of Tim Berne, alto saxophone, Oscar Noriega, bass and b-flat clarinets, Ryan Ferreira, electric and acoustic guitars, Matt Mitchell, piano and electronics, and Ches Smith, drums, vibraphone, percussion, timpani. Each group member has a specific set of roles to play in the very integrated compositional-improvisational event horizons.

Pianist Mitchell is often in a gravitating, pivotal role as the center of the many perpetuum mobile cycles of repetition, which are rhythmically precise but cross-positioned against a two or four beat pulse so they act polyrhythmically and poly-semantically, or in other words you hear the whole in multiple dimensions.

The repeating figures are more and more contrapuntal, and the role of all here is to extend and expand in between the crevices of the mobiles, to act within and outside of the event horizons in improvisational ways when they are not called upon to be a direct part of the orbiting motives.

What's exhilarating about it all especially on this new album is how the multiple dimensional presence of the orbital figures and the free expressions that pulsate around and outside of them work together for a complex whole that has free energy but yet functions in a very compositionally structured framework.

There is a little of the rabbit or duck oscillation that happens in the listener's ear at key points, like a gestalt poly-image that you can see two ways and continually shift back and forth between them.

All the artists contribute their very personal sound signatures in the best ways while doing something always within the original world of Berne's Snakeoil. That is a group-concept accomplishment worthy of the highest praise and of course not often the rule in the jazz world except when the melding of artist and group reach a symbiotic stage--Duke's bands, Miles, Trane all come to mind as the most enduringly successful music mind melds. Snakeoil has reached something of that stage. Now of course we will look forward to how that can proceed, continue, develop even further.

But all that is secondary to the sheer mental-emotional pleasure one feels once one has gotten inside this music. It's pretty seminal! You must dive into this one ears first. The rewards are considerable. Listen and grok!

Oh, by the way, the band is touring the USA now through May if you are interested. Google Tim Berne's Snakeoil for the details.

Charles Evans, On Beauty, with David Liebman

Baritone sax phenom and jazz composer Charles Evans has been giving us much to like with his consistently worthwhile albums, more than a few by now, and he shows no signs of letting up. If there is such as thing as sophomore jinx in jazz, and I am not sure there is, he is not one prone to it. Quite the opposite.

The new one delves deeply into an avant chamber jazz that consists of a multi-part composition-improvisational platform called On Beauty (More is More 152). It is a through composed suite by Charles featuring himself of course on baritone, his mentor David Liebman on soprano, Ron Stabinsky on piano and Tony Marino on bass.

Evans and Liebman have a very inspired improvisational presence, both separately and collectively, as they weave improv with the compositional material. Ron Stabinsky plays his very modern harmonically extended parts and adds some brilliant improvisations as well. And bassist Tony Marino brings up the bottom with a full tone and good ideas.

This is music that plays structure against freedom in ways that may remind you of early AACM or even Jimmy Giuffre in his more outside period when Paul Bley and Steve Swallow were key members in his ensemble. But that only covers precedents, not things imitated, for Charles comes through once again as a determined and eloquent musical personality, a baritone of stature but also a music composer-director who has direction and purpose, who succeeds in carving out his own new jazz turf in ways that make you listen and appreciate.

It is one more landmark-signifying notch in the musical belt of Mr. Charles Evans. It is more-or-less required listening for anyone who wants to explore the newness to be had out there today. Formidable music!

Simon Frick, Solo

To my knowledge I have never had the pleasure of hearing violinist Simon Frick before. He is an extremely adroit virtuoso with apparently considerable classical training. He puts that schooling into very distinctive use in a solo violin album that makes of the violin a rock vehicle.

Solo (Boomslang) begins with a most unusual version of Nirvana's anthem "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and goes on from there with a series of very metallic solo violin pieces, making excellent use of effects and it seems double-tracking to give us a powerful jolt.

Beneath it all are real virtuoso abilities. Much of the music has a cadenza-like quality but also a driving hard-rock heft. Not since Jerry Goodman's work with the Flock has so much violin gone into a rock setting. And here as a solo violin effort the virtuosity and the heavy aspects join together as a unified single-source power thrust.

There are clearly improvisational elements as well as worked-over compositional routines on display. And the whole thing works together to give you an iconoclastic, genre-bursting wholeness that is most impressive.

If you come out of the rock side, you will be flabbergasted. If you come out of the classical side you may be shocked. If you have been musically exposed to both camps you will not feel that this is a shotgun marriage of styles. It works so well because Frick stays true to the rootedness of his violin heritage as well as the hard-rock world he so successfully engages.

It is a real ear-opener! Maybe even an era-opener! You will undeniably get something out of this music wherever you come from. He is an artist, truly, an innovator, and a creative force that needs to be heard.

Abdelhai Bennani Trio, The Crawling Snake, with Alan Silva, Makoto Sato

Tenor avantist Abdelhai Bennani has been rather prolific with releases on the JaZt Tapes label. I have covered a number of them and today we have another. It is a trio of Bennani, Alan Silva on digital keys and piano, and Makoto Sato on drums, which is a very potent threesome on this live date from Rennes, France. The album is called The Crawling Snake (JaZt Tapes CD 053).

It is a continuous 50 minute performance of the free jazz sort, as you may have imagined. Makoto Sato gives us his dynamo all-over drumming style, Alan Silva reminds us that he is an imaginative avant conceptualist whether on bass or on keyboards, and Abdelhai gives us a robust over-the-top tenor madness very much in keeping with his approach. Everyone gets in-your-face in very good ways here.

With the recent demise of Bernard Stollman, founder of ESP Disks, we are reminded of how the legacy of the visionary artists who first recorded for that label lives on with a recording like this. It is an updated "new thing" we hear on The Crawling Snake, surely. And it sounds to me as fresh as ever. Alan Silva was one of the breakthrough artists of course in those early New York days. And he continues to thrive as evidenced by this recording, with Bennani and Sato giving us very vibrant fellow-artists for a pleasingly out excursion.

For further info and to find out how to order, go the the JaZt Tapes site: http://www.janstrom.se/7.-jazt-tapes-15468036

This is "free jazz" the way it sounds when everybody is attuned to the spirit feel. Recommended!

Spin Marvel, Infolding

I first heard Norwegian trumpeter Nils Petter Molvaer with his group opening for Terje Rypdal in a live New York appearance sometime around 1997, the same year his ECM album Khmer was released. I liked what I heard on the bandstand and I liked the album, too. But somehow I got sidetracked (mostly in overwork) and lost sight of his very electric post-Milesean trumpet and group sound, though other albums followed.

So now I am pleased these years later to find him back into my earspan as a part of the band Spin Marvel, on the recent album Infolding (Rarenoise 34849).

It is an excellent spaced-out electronic free-jazz-rock sound the band gets on this delightful slab. With Nils is a solid lineup of Martin France on drums, Terje Evensen on live electronics, and Tim Harries on bass. These are free group improvs that have a pronounced and varied group routine that comes through distinctively on the six tracks of the album.

Nils sounds as good as ever in his post-Miles lyrical outness, whether his trumpet is redolent with effects or not. There are some excellently spooky moments when Nils creates sonic auras that grab you and thrust you outwards into cosmic territory.

France on drums is a very creative force, not content to just lay down time but also straying into the open-field arrhythmia that he approaches very creatively, with some Floyd-Hendrix-Baker toms as well as free jazz inflections. Bassist Harries also does not remain in a riffing zone so much as he brings up the sonic bottom with electric freedom. And Evensen is a key factor in the mix, too, giving much color and texture to the sound with expansive electrical clouds.

For those who like to dwell in high musical places Spin Marvel carry on the post-psychedelic art and bring it to original places. Those who eschew electronics may not care for the music, but if they give it a chance they might see how the present is an evolvement when done so nicely as this of our not always halcyon days musically speaking, that is, as a very legitimate contemporary presence and advanced musical art form.

The electric free sound continues to grow and progress. Spin Marvel is one of the glowing examples of how that is happening. This album will take you back to the future in ways both original and moving!

Eric Normand, Philippe Lauzier, Not the Music

On tap today is a CD by Eric Normand and Philippe Lauzier entitled Not the Music (Tour de Bras). It is a Quebec Canadian release that gets your immediate attention by sporting a cover which is in fact a small brown paper lunch bag imprinted with red ink and tied together with a plain white string.

Musically it features Eric Normand on electric bass and clarinet and Philippe Lauzier on bass clarinet and soprano sax. It is free improvisation in a definite avant zone, with a new music feel that extends outward from some of the classic avant sounds of MEV and AMM. Unconventional sounds and unusual playing techniques are the rule, effectively so, as what apparently is an unconventionally bowed electric bass, prepared it seems in various ways, and the two wind instruments lay out a carpet of unusual sound colors and textures.

This does not have as much in the way of obvious jazz roots as it has experimental musical affiliations. To appreciate the music it helps to approach it with a blank slate rather than a set of expectations. If Lauzier sometimes sounds a bit reminiscent of Evan Parker on soprano, it is not in some obvious way and the overall context is the very advanced avant ambient rather than what is more typical in free improvisational circles.

It may put some people off but I find the entire album rather invigorating. There isn't a stitch of compromise to be heard here. They are not out to please the crowd so much as stretch the sonic boundaries of timbre. And for that they do very well. Very well, indeed.

Recommended for those who respond to the very daringly experimental. Bravo!