Szilard Mezei Ensemble, BOT, 2004

After a bit of a break it's time today to look at the last in the batch of Szilard Mezei recordings on Not Two Records that I have been covering of the past few months. It is BOT (Not Two 818-2), one of Szilard's most ambitious offerings. Here we are treated to two full CDs of music recorded live in 2004.

It's a 10-member ensemble playing Mezei compositions and freely improvising around them. The band has a vibrant color, partly due to Mezei's writing/arranging, partly due to the instrumentation: oboe, bass clarinet/clarinet/alto, two trumpets, trombone, tuba, viola (Mezei), cello, doublebass and drums. So there is a potential contrast between and confluence of winds, brass, strings and percussion that Mezei makes use of in various creative ways as well as breaking out parts of sections to work together during solos and elsewise.

There is a lot of music to be heard, all of it worthwhile. The compositional/improvisational elements balance well throughout and the rhythmic feels vary from free to swinging and things in between.

This is/was a band that could and did make a statement via Mezei's compositional brilliance. It is a set filled with originality and excitement. I most certainly recommend it.

Pao, Pedro Sousa, Tiago Sousa, Travassos

The Portuguese creative music-improv scene today gets a new label to showcase some of the more adventurous sides of what is going on. It's called Shhpuma. It's a division of the seminal contemporary label Clean Feed. And I have their second release, Pao (Shhpuma 002), on my player as I write these lines.

Pao is a trio effort featuring Pedro Sousa on tenor sax, Tiago Sousa on keys, harmonium and percussion, and Travassos on live electronics. It's a heady sort of new music-free improv sound they get, with layers of electronic texture and drone, sometimes aided by harmonium and other keyboard effects, for a tripartite series of soundscapes that places Pedro Sousa's tenor overtop of the wash playing long notes, subtones, harmonics, unconventional soundings and breaking at certain points into a flurry of avant expression which stands out as significant contrast and musical event.

This is music of adventure, not exactly something to groove out on in some conventional jazzy sense. It is music of sound color, well done for what it is doing, moody, atmospheric. It is not music of a self-assuming sort. No one is trying to amaze you with prowess. It's all about the sounds. That is fully legitimate (in the sense that it has as much right to exist as bebop or symphonic music) and they leave an impression that is both positive and memorable.

Alex Wyatt, There's Always Something

Thanks to Kickstarter, we have Alex Wyatt's There's Always Something (NOWT Records NOWT 006) to appreciate. It's a sextet playing Wyatt's compositions, Alex on drums, Kyle Wilson on tenor, Masahiro Yamamoto, alto and soprano, Greg Ruggiero on guitar, Danny Fox, piano, and Christopher Tordini, bass.

It's a set of players that have the subtle finesse and style to fit the pieces, which are new jazz mainstream--or in other words, the music is progressive-acoustic, well put-together, and the players know what to do. Alex's rhythmic sensibilities come into play in the compositions and in the grooves that weave around them. There are kicks and other rhythmic devices that give the music a jolt and show off Wyatt's fine drumming. But the melodic-harmonic content of the numbers is also compelling, with some nice twists.

I like Wilson's stylistically encompassing tenor. It compliments Yamamoto's contemporary stance nicely. Both Ruggiero and Fox weave some very attractive lines. Tordini's bass playing is distinctive enough that you can listen to what he's doing directly and get something out of it on its own, but of course what he's doing also fits in well with the music at hand.

Everybody sounds good and the tunes are quite interesting and unpredictable. It's an album you need to listen to a few times to get how nice it all is. Then you are there. I was. Thank you Alex.

Hairybones, Snakelust (for Kenji Nakagami), Toshinori Kondo, Massimo Pupillo, Peter Broetzmann, Paal Nilssen-Love

Some music drives with such a singular force that it totally occupies the space it is in. There is nothing but the music at that moment and you either surrender to it and let it wash over you like a kind of baptism or you leave the space and go it alone.

That's the kind of music to be had in Hairybones' single 53-minute rout Snakelust (Clean Feed 252). It's the band live at Jazz em Agosto, Lisbon, last year and they are most definitely cranked for this set. Hairybones is the irrepressable Peter Broetzman on tenor, alto, etc.; Toshinori Kondo on trumpet; Massimo Pupillo on electric bass; and Paal Nilssen-Love on drums. Now that's a formidable lineup.

The effects and volume element of Massimo's bass and the electronics-trumpet of Toshinori gives the band an electricity that seems to bring out some harder playing from everybody. Paal is demonic, Peter, never the shy violet, is strongly possessed by the free-energy spirit here, Massimo does some very effective bass thundering, and Toshinori screams, wails and plunges into an aesthetic abyss for some of his best playing on disk.

There are times when the intensity reaches the level of Ascension and even beyond. Other times they explore less dense territory. They never flag nor do they play a single unfelt note, so far as I can hear.

I wont lie to you and say that this CD will convert those who dislike the free-energy-maelstrom sort of onslaught. I doubt that it will. It is a good one for somebody who knows nothing of this kind of music and wants to be blown away. Broetzmann fans and those who seek out the heat of out music will revel in it.

Fred Hersch Trio, Alive at the Vanguard

The Fred Hersch Trio is without a doubt one of the finest groups working in what you might call the post-Bill-Evans tradition today. The recent double CD Alive at the Vanguard (Palmetto 2159) affirms that with some great improvising-tunesmithing.

The Evans trio legacy includes the idea of the trio as a fully integrated entity, not piano solos with bass and drums relegated to mere accompaniment. The former is most certainly the case here with John Hebert on bass and Eric McPherson on drums. They play an important part in the outcome, with solo and group interactions the order of the day.

Fred of course is a fully developed, finessed artist-pianist with good harmonic and melodic ideas continually flowing from his fingers. He can be impressionistic on the ballads and he is robust and individual on the more up swingers.

The program of originals benefits from a sprinkling of standards done with some care and attention for getting to the essential core of things. The originals have plenty of variety and cut across the contemporary scene with style and a thoughtful quality.

Alive at the Vanguard captures the trio at their very best. The double CD gives listeners a bird's eye earful of what they were doing at the club last February. It's essential listening for what the piano trio is today.

The Fish, Moon Fish (Guionnet-Duboc-Perraud)

In many ways at many times so-called "free jazz" depends for its success on inspiration and inventive commitment on the part of the musicians involved. If they are without a certain amount of "juice" and a certain level of ideas, it can be a little like the cartoon image of a hippopotamus taking a high dive into a much-too-small tub of water. Ouch!

I bring this up because today's CD is just the opposite of this kind of lack. We have the trio known as the Fish doing a three-part improvisation on their recent CD Moon Fish (Clean Feed 254). They are filled with the inspiration of the muses for this one, tumbling their way through some kicking free space.

This is a well-matched European outfit of Jean-Luc Guionnet, alto, Benjamin Duboc on contrabass (who we've encountered rather often in good settings both here and on the guitar-bass blog), and Edward Perraud on drums.

They are supercharged and wail their way through this set, Guionnet sometimes worrying a phrase a la "Sunship," more often proceeding in a linear way through phrases that blaze; Duboc creating forceful counter-onslaughts and digging in for a continuously thrumming energy foundation; Perraud feeling the spirit and busily pushing his kit to the barrage limits.

It's the wild and crazy kind of freedom we have on this one, continuous, energized, on fire and beautifully frenetic. Nice one.

Natsuki Tamura, Satoko Fujii, Muku

I had no idea when I posted here a week ago that Hurricane Sandy would make it impossible to do so again until now. After a brutal buffeting by winds we lost power until Saturday, so no internet until then. I am safe and thankful for it.

Today a suitably reflective album by trumpeter Natsuki Tamuka and his pianist partner Satoko Fujii entitled Muku (Libra 102-301). It is their fifth duo recording. Natsuki wrote the music for the set in a way that required the two of them to supply the creative improvisational spark to set things alight. That happens throughout.

The music was originally written for their quartet Gato Libre (see my review of their latest disk on these pages several weeks ago) but performed as a duo here for a more open sound. The music has elements that remind one of Japanese folk strains, some that have a new music feel to them, others that might be more easily comprehended as new jazz.

It's music of reflection and introspection much of the time. Natsuki and Satoko dig into the material and give us dramatic, compassionate yet structured performances.

Nicely done and a pleasure to hear.