Dallas, 9.29.2024

The Bath House Cultural Center on White Rock Lake is a place of tranquil beauty, replete with old growth trees, bird songs, insect sounds, swimming ducks and geese. (I thought it was where the Velvet Underground played an antiwar rally during their End of Cole stand in 1969, but Jeff Leegood, who recorded them, informs me that was at Flag Pole Hill, on the north side of Northwest Highway.) 

For four weekends this fall, it's also the home of "Free Fall: Hard Blues and Harmolodics," a "firm rooted jazz series" curated by Oak Cliff's own percussionist extraordinaire, Stefan Gonzalez. The opening concert of the series, featuring Stefan's band, Trio Glossia, had perfect weather and a good size crowd for the free-admission event. Subsequent nights will feature the Shelley Carrol Trio (October 13), the South African Heritage Ensemble (October 27), and a duo of Lily Taylor and Aaron Gonzalez with Trio Glossia (November 9). It was worth the drive from Fort Worth to experience.

It was quite a striking contrast between hearing Trio Glossia playing through a rock PA at Growl in Arlington last week and experiencing the more-or-less pristine sound of their instruments (bassist Matthew Frerck had a small amp) in nature. At one point, Joshua Miller paused in the middle of Frerck's "Zoomorphology" to interact with insect sounds on the wind chime he had hanging from his tenor sax. At another, a barking dog supplied a response to the musicians. 

Part of the ongoing delight of watching this band grow together is seeing how the compositions morph in live performance, and how much more acute their three-way communication becomes. First single "Nerdy Dirty Talk," "Shedding Tongues," "To Walk the Night" (with Frerck switching to guitar), "For A Fee," "Ode to Swamp Thing," and a quick "Cikatiedid" (for the insects) were all played for maximum expressive potential. 

Gonzalez attacks his vibraphone with great intensity, and occasionally applies a lighter touch to the trap set, while Miller is a marvel of joyful abandon behind the drums, keeping time with his hi-hat while exploding all over the kit. (At one point, he quoted the percussion intro to "Nerdy Dirty Talk" during a freely improvised interlude.) His tenor voice has depth as well as power, and his small instruments add color and atmosphere to the mix. And Frerck is an astonishing virtuoso, whether driving the band with a brisk walk, soloing expressively, or slashing rhythmically with his bow. 

Trio Glossia is currently North Texas's best-kept secret. If you love jazz, improvisation, or any music infused with life and spirit, you owe it to yourself to see them. And "Free Fall: Hard Blues and Harmolodics" is off to a flying start. I recently learned that Fort Worth has an arts commission. Such a body could do worse than to fund something similar here. 

Ingebrigt Haker Flaten (Exit) Knarr's "Breezy"

(Exit) Knarr is the primary compositional outlet for Norwegian bassist extraordinare Ingebrigt Haker Flaten, whose CV from the last 30 years reads like a "who's who" of today's jazz and improvised music. In my neck of the woods, the former Austin resident is best known for his collaboration with Dennis Gonzalez (2012's The Hymn Project), his membership in the Scandinavian free jazz power trio The Thing (whose collaborators have included master improviser Joe McPhee, singer Neneh Cherry, and harmolodic OG James "Blood" Ulmer), and his leadership of the mostly-Texan jazz/hip-hop/metal juggernaut The Young Mothers. (European fans might be more tuned in to outfits like Atomic and The Bridge.) (Exit) Knarr was formed in response to a one-time commission back in 2021, and has continued with some personnel shifts since their debut album. 

Breezy, the band's sophomore effort, is dedicated to the fiery trumpeter-composer Jamie "Breezy" Branch, a friend of Flaten's from the bassist's arrival in Chicago in 2006, who passed away at age 39 in 2022. Rather than serve up a sad requiem, the album endeavors to capture Branch's vibrant and adventurous spirit, beginning with the exuberant release of the opening "Afrotastic," which juxtaposes polyrhythmic urgency with the township lilt of its melodic theme. Trumpeter Erik Kimestad Pedersen leaps right in with a blazing solo, full of staccato notes, before being swept away on a sea of multi-horn polyphony. "Free the Jazz" explodes out of the gate with altoist Mette Rasmussen at her most Dolphic, making wide intervallic leaps and multiphonic squawks over a relentless ostinato. Massed horns set up pianist Oscar Gronberg's obliquely Monkian solo. Finally, the dense blocks of sound wind down to a close.

"Hilma" features both original (Exit) Knarr guitarist Oddrun Lilja Jonsdottir (who plays the hauntingly spectral atmospheric opening) and her replacement, Jonathan F. Horne, who also plays with Flaten in The Young Mothers. The piano and trumpet establish an echolalic theme, gradually taken up by the other instruments. A second, more angular theme emerges over an Elvin groove from drummer Olaf Moses Olsen, giving way to a venturesome solo from Horne that perfectly captures the restless energy and invention he displays in live performance. The guitarist continues burning brightly on the fiercely swinging "Ability," which also features a sinuous solo statement on soprano from Karl Hjalmar Nyberg (who's featured on tenor elsewhere on the disc).

The eponymous title track closes the album, evoking Branch's memory with a soulful, searching trumpet solo, backed by Joakim Rainer Petersen's synth, before the other instruments join in with blazing collective improvisation, commending her to the cosmos with the joy that only comes after pain. Breezy is a worthy tribute to an artist who left to soon, and proof of Ingebrigt Haker Flaten's stature as composer and bandleader.

'Bout strings 'n' things: Brandon Seabrook, Dustin Wong & Gregory Uhlmann, New York City Guitar Orchestra

Brandon Seabrook first appeared on my radar as the shred-tastic heavy metal banjo player with the band Seabrook Power Plant back in 2009. I saw him give a much more restrained performance with Jen Shyu and Harry Bertoia's sounding sculptures at the Nasher Sculpture Center in 2022, and was mightily impressed by his through-composed octet pieces on last year's Pyroclastic debut, brutalovechamp. Seabrook's sophomore release for Kris Davis's label, Object of Unknown Function, out on October 18, seeks to capture the vigorous physicality of his playing by including his body sounds, captured via contact mics attached to his legs, throat, and chest, along with the sounds of his banjos and guitars.

It's a "solo" album -- Seabrook's first since 2014's Sylphid Vitalizers on New Atlantis -- of overdubbed performances, juiced with ambience and rhythmic elements from cassette tapes. The combination of classic axes -- a 1920 guitar banjo, 1998 12-string electric, 1925 tenor banjo, and 1989 Telecaster -- and Seabrook's composer's intent results in a music that's orchestral in scope, with folkloric sounds bumping up against sci-fi effects. The net effect is similar to what Nels Cline achieved on his 2009 overdubbed-solo outing Coward, still a fave a my house. Objects of Unknown Function is as fine a representation of Seabrook's total engagement with his instruments and his intellect as one could imagine. 

Guitarists Dustin Wong and Gregory Uhlmann are a couple of Angelenos whose lives and careers have followed circuitous paths. Wong grew up in Japan and played with Baltimore outfits Ponytail and Ecstatic Sunshine before spending time in Brooklyn. Uhlmann's a Chicago native whose resume includes work with Perfume Genius, Meg Duffy, Anna Butterss, and Jeremiah Chiu. Wong saw Uhlmann playing improv with Patrick Shiroishi and sensed a kindred spirit. 

After playing some shows together, Wong and Uhlmann recorded the improvisations on Water Map -- their newie on Stephen Buono's Otherly Love label -- on a rainy L.A. afternoon, then overdubbed keyboards for added ambience. The resultant jams hit like minimalist dreamscapes, redolent of the influence of '70s German synth experimentalists Harmonia, or the ruminative side of '80s King Crimson. Rainy day, dream away indeed.

Finally, I became aware of the New York City Guitar Orchestra's new collection Spectra: New Music for Guitar Orchestra because of the inclusion therein of my virtual pal, shredder turned electroacoustic composer Marco Oppedisano's darkly tinged, echolalic "Two of a Kind," but there's lots more to recommend this generous (32 tracks! 17 new works!) digital treasure trove. 

Joao Luiz's "Three Brazilian Pieces," for instance, pay homage in turn to the martial art capoeira, the Amazonian toada style that incorporates indigenous and African influences, and the northeastern maracutu style with its contrasting rhythms. Some pieces, like Frederic Hand's "Chorale" or Andrew York's "Catwalk," have the airy spaciousness of Pat Metheny's midwestern sky music. Jonathan Pieslak's "Ambienspheres" wafts its way through several sections to conjure the sense impression of a drug-induced haze. William Anderson's "Folksongs" (in six movements) has a guitar quartet deftly embroidering around familiar melodies. Gyan Riley's 16-minute "The Landloper" layers percussion effects, evolving lines, shifting accents, and extended techniques to create an expansive sound world.

In case you hadn't guessed, I love guitar anthologies, and this is an exceptional one, replete with enticing ear candy for six-string enthusiasts. Dig in!

Arlington, 9.21.2024

When I think of Arlington, it's usually to remember days gone by: playing Stoogeaphilia shows at the Sunshine Bar and Caves Lounge, plotting HIO with Mark Cook and Terry Horn over beers at Ozzy Rabbit. But last night, Stefan Gonzalez had booked Trio Glossia on an eclectic bill at GROWL, a chill spot that includes a brewery, record store/show space, and pizza joint (which I waited too late to try last night; next time), where I'd never set foot before but folks like Stone Machine Electric, Herd of Instinct, and Liquid Sound Company play on the regular. It was an all ages show, so my friend Tammy Gomez and her nephew Lucas joined me for the evening.

I've gotten spoiled by the folks at Molten Plains announcing when the sets start, so I missed the beginning of Moon Presence's set. On this occasion, Moon Presence (aka John Schiller) was performing "... And Then Your Breath Dissipates," the lead off track from their recent cassette release Rellichs, accompanied by Aaron Gonzalez on stand up bass and voice, with visuals by Ash Hunn. Together, the three conjured an unearthly atmosphere, with Aaron singing into the sound hole of his bass.

It was Joshua Miller's birthday, so I took him a Peter Brotzmann record for his prezzie. Later, I heard him talking with Tammy about the Jazz Bike Tour she organized back in 2018. I was curious to hear how Trio Glossia would sound through a rock PA. Plus, they were breaking in a new Matthew Frerck composition that features the bassist on guitar. When it was over, the musicians talked about how the stage monitors created a volume differential depending on where one stood, and how they were unable to hear each other. 

But they powered through, playing a set that was less nuanced than the one they played at The Wild Detectives a couple of weeks ago, but appropriate for the room and the crowd. The physicality of Stefan's performance on vibraphone and drums, the joyful energy Joshua projects from behind the traps and the sheer visceral power of his tenor sax glossolalia (I heard someone use that word discussing the performance ex post facto), and the dark, heavy, harmonic rich sound of Matthew's amplified arco bass all won the crowd over and had them testifying. 

Baltimore dark wave duo Curse had the third slot (I remember when headliners used to play last, but now the penultimate slot is the choice one), and they filled the night with darkly melodic thunder. I like the way Jane Vincent sings in her natural voice, eschewing the excessive effects that too many singers in this style rely on, and Logan Terkelson hits the skins hard in a manner that put me in mind of both my buddy Jon Teague and the Riz Ahmed character in Sound of Metal. Later, Tammy got to talk story with Jane about her college days in Baltimore, where Logan used to tend bar in one of her favorite watering holes. Small world.

I've known Alex Atchley for about 15 years now, first hearing him playing solo instrumental as Naxat at the Tommy Atkins benefit at the Kessler Theater before it was open. I think Tammy knew him when he was a youngster hanging out at 1919 Hemphill, and he's been through loads of bands since then (Bad Times, Blank-Men, Born Snapped), but I never heard any of them until Inverted Candles last night.

These folks were billed as black metal, but they sound like a good old punk band to me (my dinosaur mind can't comprehend the subgenres for punk and metal that folks in the know tend to use). The band's built around Atchley and drummer Brandon Young, with guitarist Peter Hawkinson (who also plays in C.I. with my Fort Worth punk rock pal Bob Nash, also in the house last night) and a new bassist (whose name I unfortunately missed) to fill out the sound. But the real action is up front with singer Jack O'Hara, who prowls the audience with classic presence (Bobby said young Nick Cave, I said Stiv Bators, so take your pick). Semantic hair splitting aside, it was a cathartic performance that left me drained but sated.

Now I feel like I've been thrown down the stairs, but in a good way -- like I used to after a Stooge show. Time to rest my old ass up in time to welcome my friend Nick from NYC back to Tejas on Wednesday. It's a great life if you don't weaken.

Dallas, 9.20.2024

Groglydyte Progglebot's Birthday Conundrum was the Aaron Gonzalez-coined rubric for guitarist-composer Gregg Prickett's 59th birthday shindig at Full City Rooster, the congenial South Dallas coffee spot that's been the site of several of my favorite performances I've witnessed this year. Gregg pulls a sizable (I hate to say "for this kind of thing") and enthusiastic audience for his various musical projects, a number of which were showcased tonight.

The classical-improv-world music hybrid Trio du Sang started things off with a triptych of their rhythmically motile, folklorically melodic flights of fancy, highlighted by Andrew May's virtuosic violin and Bobby Fajardo's propulsive hand drumming, with Gregg's classical chops coming to the fore as he held down the harmonic underpinnings and spun off rapid runs. Andrew and Bobby would return later to augment the Monks of Saturnalia.

By way of introduction, Gregg allowed that he's not much of a rock fan ("To me, classic rock is Albert Ayler"), but his recent duo doings with Jonathan Horne (who plays a Mosrite autographed by Nokie Edwards of the Ventures) reminded him of an earlier project where he played surf music and Johnny Cash tunes with guitarist John Georgotis. John joined Gregg to essay a few on dueling steel-strings: an original tune they wrote "100 years ago," the Ventures' "Walk Don't Run," "Folsom Prison Blues" sung by John, and "Long Black Veil" sung by Gregg in the manner of Leo Kottke ("like geese farts on a muggy day;" methinks he sells himself short).

Sawtooth Dolls is Gregg's electric guitar duo with Professor Paul Quigg (Superman's Girlfriend/Nervebreakers/Vibrolux), whose honorary degree Gregg awarded just today. Their set was the freest improvisation of the evening, with Paul shifting chords like Hendrix near the end of the Woodstock jam (albeit with less velocity) and playing lines with what sounded like an octave pedal, while Gregg spun webs of lines around him and added contrasting colors and textures.

The high point of the evening, for me, was the performance by the aforementioned Monks of Saturnalia, the vehicle for Gregg's Ayler and Mingus-influenced jazz compositions. These folks were playing on the regular in Denton before Covid. One night I skipped to go write postcards to voters in North Tarrant (and got interviewed by NPR for my trouble), figuring I'd catch them the next time. Then came the lockdown, proving that one should never take any next time for granted.

These days, besides Gregg and Denton bass stalwart Drew Phelps, the Monks lineup includes the dual tenors of veteran Steve Brown and fiery newcomer Nathan Collins up front, with Alan Green behind the trap set. On this occasion, they were augmented by Andrew May on violin and Bobby Fajardo on hand percussion for a set that included three compositions, opening with Gregg's Ayler tribute "He Walked Into the River," which the composer played with Ronald Shannon Jackson's Decoding Society at the drum titan's last-ever concert performance back in 2012. 

On "No Salt," Drew played some deep blues on arco before Gregg took what I call his "Otis Rush solo," taking time to breathe between splatters of splintered notes. Alan Green is the perfect percussionist for this ensemble, subtly swinging, keeping time on his ride. On "Hika," a hip waltz for a wolf who once lived with Gregg, you could see the guitarist and drummer locking eyes as Prickett played a chordal run, climbing chromatically to a blues release. Also notable were the way the rhythm section adjusted their dynamics for May's slashing violin solo, and Green played the quietest drum solo I've ever heard (with counterpoint from Fajardo) before the final recapitulation. 

Gregg says he wants do to more with the Monks, and is writing material for a new trio with Collins and Green. I look forward to hearing, and I'll be back at Full City on October 10 to hear Austin saxophonist Joshua Thomson (Atlas Maior) in a trio with Aaron and Stefan Gonzalez. Kudos to Full City's Michael for creating a welcoming environment for left-of-center sounds and those of us who love them.

Denton, 9.18.2024

Fifty-four years after the day my mother came and picked me up from middle school to tell me Jimi Hendrix had passed, I listened to Band of Gypsys and read a retired library copy of Greg Tate's Hendrix book (Midnight Lightning: Jimi Hendrix and the Black Experience) while pondering how yesterday's innovators become the club reactionaries use to beat up on bringers of the new breed thing. With 50 days to go until the election, I'm writing postcards to voters and signed up online to make phone calls for the Dems -- when I went to pick up our Colin Allred sign, a worker at the local headquarters told me 145,000 voters have been dropped from the rolls in Tarrant County, so they're trying to alert them and remind them early voting starts October 21.

When my buddy Mike and I rolled up at Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studios for this month's edition of Molten Plains, we could hear a band in the tower in the parking lot playing something that sounded like Pere Ubu's "Street Waves," and once inside, Chad Withers pointed out the shelf he'd constructed to hold the VHS tape collection I sold him for the price of a nice dinner for my wife. Apparently, Fellini's Juliet of the Spirits has been a staff favorite. Later, it was interesting to hear some patrons remarking on how their parents loved Jim Jarmusch's Coffee and Cigarettes, seeing Iggy and Tom Waits on the box, and remembering some of my early cinephile experiences (watching Satyricon over a New York bar fight while on LSD, only later realizing that it wasn't the acid, the continuity really was that fucked up; seeing Casanova with my bad-acting buddies in some South Dallas strip mall).

For the evening's first set, the room was configured with chairs in a circle around two tables where Rachel Weaver and James Talambas sat facing each other with the concentration of chess players. Weaver is a Molten Plains stalwart who always brings something interesting to the table, here collaborating for the first time with New Media Contemporary honcho Talambas, who just concluded a seven year stint on the Fort Worth Art Commission (a body of whose existence I, as a Panther City resident, am ashamed to say I was unaware), on laptop. From the first moments, the two blended their sounds as though they had been playing together for years, mixing sounds from nature with static and electronic pulses, joining up to flow together like the tides, pulled by the moon, sweeping back and forth in stereo picture to create an effect that was quite transporting.

Next on line was Houston's Enemy Goddess, who after an initial stop (cotton gloves don't work well with touch screens) built a tripartite wall of harsh noise, altering textures and rhythms as they went (putting me in mind of dancer Sarah Gamblin's remark last month that every movement creates a problem to be solved), adding the sounds of bells and electronically treated voice. After the set, ritual jane spoke quite disarmingly of having started playing while working for H-Town's Nameless Sound (and mindful of the Pauline Oliveros heritage there), initially on percussion but gradually supplanting that with electronics "because you can't really do percussion living in an apartment." Their initial forays into electronic music were abandoned for noise when "everyone said it sounded like video game music." Now they create a huge sound of dark menace that my buddy Mike said would take a few minutes to recover from -- which ritual jane took as a compliment.

The evening's final set featured the first collaboration between two duos, Monte Espina and Sin Razon. On this occasion, the confluence of Molten Plains co-curator Ernesto Montiel's treated guitar and Miguel Espinel's percussion, wind instruments, and electronic treatments with Lo Ramirez's powerful voice and electronics and Julio A. Sanchez's guitar and effects combined to create a teeming, primordial soundscape, replete with the rumbling of shifting tectonic plates and cries of new life awakening. Watching Sanchez (with whom I had a chance to perform during the Improv Lotto back in July) bending down repeatedly to tweak his effects, I couldn't help worrying about his back (although he's young and doesn't have these concerns). I meant to suggest that he try performing seated, or put his pedals on a stand. Maybe next time.

Next Molten Plains will be October 30, featuring Australian percussionist Will Guthrie, and this year's Molten Plains Fest will be December 14-15, with a lineup to be announced. This Friday, I'll be checking out guitarist extraordinaire Gregg Prickett's birthday at Full City Rooster in Dallas, with performances by his ensembles Sawtooth Dolls, Trio du Sang, and Monks of Saturnalia. Then Saturday, I'll head for Growl Records in Arlington to catch Trio Glossia (who are now featuring Matthew Frerck on guitar for a new number) on an eclectic bill at an all ages show. And I'm hoping my new batch of postcards arrives so I can join in a Postcards To Voters campaign for Senator Sherrod Brown in Ohio, fighting against the racist targeting of Haitian immigrants in Springfield. Got to do something.

Things we like: Weird of Mouth, Patrick Shiroishi

Los Angeles-based Otherly Love Records is the imprint of Stephen Buono, a longtime jazz publicist who also makes music under the rubric Church Chords. The label's latest release -- marking a dozen titles since its inception -- caught my eye with a handful of familiar names that are indicative of Buono's taste. 

Weird of Mouth, out October 4, is the self-titled debut from a cooperative trio of improvisers: Danish altoist Mette Rasmussen, pianist Craig Taborn, and drummer Ches Smith. Rasmussen, currently based in Norway, has played with a long list of noteworthy collaborators, but is familiar here through her work with longtime Austin resident, the Norwegian bassist Ingebright Haker Flaten's (Exit) Knarr ensemble, and her own Hatch Expansion project with guitarist Julien Desprez, which recorded two concerts in Texas in 2019 (released on Sonic Transmissions/Astral Spirits last year as Texas Edition). Taborn is responsible for two of the great jazz piano records of the century so far (Avenging Angel and Chants, both for ECM) and has worked with innovators like Roscoe Mitchell, Tim Berne, and William Parker; I was fortunate to see him perform in the Octopus duo with Kris Davis for two successive nights in 2022. Smith is as ubiquitous as Tom Rainey on recordings of creative music originating in New York City. His own albums as leader are diverse and uniformly excellent (the latest, Laugh Ash, is one of this year's finest).

The three musicians first performed as a trio at The Stone in NYC back in 2016. The seven tracks included here were recorded live and raw -- close-miked and in the same room -- in Brooklyn during the summer of 2022. Rasmussen's an altoist of uncommon power, sounding at times like a tenor of the '60s "energy music" school. Rather than swinging or grooving behind her, Taborn and Smith pitch and roil like an angry sea, with waves of crashing chords and crackling percussive clatter. But Weird of Mouth isn't a non-stop energy orgy; "Brooders of Joy" and "In Search of Soul Pane" showcase a quieter, more ruminative side of this group, with ample space for their conversations to unfold. "Planisphere" shows the trio's dynamic range at its fullest. Things get weirder as they go, with Taborn's electronics (familiar from his Junk Magic project) adding other textures and dimensions to the music. A meeting of creative minds you shouldn't miss, and impetus for me to seek out more of Rasmussen's work.

I first became aware of Los Angeles-based composer and multi-instrumentalist Patrick Shiroishi when he played last year's Molten Plains Fest, in a trio with bassists Aaron Gonzalez and Damon Smith, and I was quite taken with his 2023 album i was too young to hear silence -- solo saxophone in a resonant space, informed (as is much of his work) by his family's experience of World War II internment. His new album for Otherly Love, Glass House, out September 20, is a collaboration with choreographer Mamie Green of the dance theater collective VOLTA, and the four pieces were created to be performed "in a specific environment, in conversation with movement, spoken text, [and] embodied space." A YouTube video for "the procession" gives a good idea of the cumulative effect. 

Glass House evokes home and family, and Shiroishi's score employs field recordings, found sounds, drums, bass, keyboard, MIDI, and alto sax to create soundscapes that establish mood and provide a background for movement. With the exception of "the procession," all of the pieces' titles come from a script that's read in performance. The opening "memories (i am in the vortex)" is played to set the scene while the audience and dancers enter the space. The upbeat dance track "what i do makes no sense at all," while extremely uncharacteristic of Shiroishi, came from the musician observing the dancers in rehearsal to see how they work; the sense of movement is palpable even without the visual input. The closing "someday you'll wake up, and you just won't feel like playing anymore // why not? i say" flows languorously, with pulse and swells of melody gradually surfacing, becoming orchestral in its sweep. This surprising album shows the depth and dimension Shiroishi the composer is able to achieve in his solo work.

Jason Stein's "Anchors"

I first encountered Chicago-based bass clarinet specialist Jason Stein in 2009 via a solo CD on Leo (Solo: In Exchange for a Process) and another with his trio Locksmith Isidore on Clean Feed (Three Less Than Between). The latter's 2010 follow-up, Three Kinds of Happiness (on the Polish Not Too label), was even more accessible, a quality that came into play even more during the couple of years the group spent touring as an opening act for Stein's half-sister, comedian Amy Schumer. Most recently, I heard Stein on a 2022 collaboration with improv eminence Damon Smith and drummer Adam Shead (Volumes & Surfaces on Smith's Balance Point Acoustics).

The conceptual basis for Stein's stunning new album, Anchors, recorded at the end of 2022 and released on Whit Dickey's Tao Forms label, can be found in healing practices -- cold-water plunges, breathwork, myofascial trigger point therapy -- that the musician adopted in response to a potentially career-ending injury he suffered years ago. His collaborators here are bassist Joshua Abrams (in whose Natural Information Society Stein has played since 2017), drummer Gerald Cleaver, and the mononymous Boon, who co-produced the record with Stein and plays guitar on both versions of "Anchor," which bookend the album with moments of meditative stillness.

There's no narrative flow to the thematic content of the pieces, but "Crystalline" and "An Origin" describe Stein's affliction -- "the destructive power of stagnation" and "the root of suffering." On the former, he explores the upper reaches of his instrument's range with arco bass and cymbal accompaniment until a theme emerges and the band's sound deepens and solidifies. Stein ends the tune playing the same low, pulsing note that recurs throughout "An Origin," distorted by overtones, before Stein's somber solo statement.

Two of the pieces were inspired by specific physical rituals that Stein practices, learning to relax during discomfort or deprivation. "Cold Water" is an explosion of energy music -- a shock to the system -- while on "Holding Breath," Stein's virtuosic playing sounds far from suppressed or effortful. "Boon," with its rapid, free-flowing lines, evokes intervals of relief, whether intentional or serendipitous. (Any relationship between the title and the guest artist isn't alluded to in the notes.) Can music "about" healing rituals, itself have healing properties? Listen, decide for yourself, and if so, then let it play on.

Fort Worth, 9.7.2024

 

Fall Gallery Night coincided with the return of moderate temperatures, so we celebrated by visiting the Oakhurst gallery space of our dear friend Jesse Sierra Hernandez, stopped back at the house for some leftovers, then hoofed it to Illuminate Art Space, the studio of Greg Davis Photography and Amy Lynn Jewelry, before continuing to Curly's Custard for dessert. (Make mine Death By Chocolate. It ain't health food, but I don't do this every day.) After stopping to visit with a neighbor, I toddled off to the Grackle Art Gallery to catch an improv set by the duo of Phelps and Progglebot, aka Drew Phelps and Gregg Prickett. ("Groglydyte Progglebot" is a sobriquet bestowed on Gregg by Aaron Gonzalez, in his fashion.)

Drew and Gregg are always a joy to hear improvise together, combining stellar chops with the ability to listen and respond in the moment (rather than just running licks). On this occasion (the second appearance of this duo at Grackle), Drew announced that they were "without a song" (perhaps in honor of Sonny Rollins' birthday?), but would pick up where they left off last time, with "Improvisation #4," which proved to be a nifty slice of electric chamber music, with Gregg's volume pedal swells blending with Drew's arco bass. 

Gregg gets more expressive tonal variety out of his volume and delay pedals than lesser players do from huge pedalboards, with fluidity to match early John Abercrombie's and a color palette to rival Bill Frisell's. His digital facility -- lots of hammer-ons and pull-offs -- had him swarming over the fretboard like Jerry Reed or Albert Lee on steroids to pizzicato counterpoint from Drew on "Improvisation #5." (Drew commented that they'd continue using this method of naming tunes "until we have to write this stuff down.") "Improvisation #6" was a mutant blues featuring slide guitar with delay and more arco bass. They finished with "Improvisation #7 (Bossa Nova)," which Gregg started on electric and finished on acoustic.

Gregg will celebrate his birthday at Full City Rooster in Dallas on September 20 with an array of collaborators including Sawtooth Dolls (his guitar duo with Paul Quigg, who was along at Grackle to provide audio and video documentation) and Monks of Saturnalia (my favorite band that doesn't play often enough), a vehicle for Gregg's Mingus-influenced compositions featuring Drew and multi-reedist Jeffrey Barnes (Brave Combo). Looking further down the road, they also plan to do a live soundtrack to film (possibly clips from Fellini's Casanova) on October 19 -- same day as Daron Beck's memorial at Texas Theater, so we may need to make a Dallas day of it.

Kris Davis's "Run the Gauntlet"

It's been a decade now since pianist-composer Kris Davis's last outing at the helm of a trio -- 2014's Waiting for You to Grow on Clean Feed, with John Hebert and Tom Rainey. After two albums with her Diatom Ribbons ensemble, a Grammy award for the first album with Terry Lyne Carrington's New Standards project, three albums with the collaborative Borderlands Trio, and a year of touring with Dave Holland's New Quartet, Davis is back with a new trio, featuring some surprising collaborators. 

Bassist Robert Hurst is best known for his work with Wynton and Branford Marsalis, while drummer Johnathan Blake is a leader in his own right, as well as a veteran of side gigs with Kenny Barron, Dr. Lonnie Smith, and Tom Harrell, among others. If Davis's new bandmates' pedigrees seem more mainstream than the folks she usually runs with, check out the YouTube videos of the Vision Festival set she played with William Parker and Wynton's old drummer Jeff "Tain" Watts a couple of years ago.

In a way, Run the Gauntlet -- out on Davis's Pyroclastic label on September 27 -- can be seen as an extension of Davis's work with Carrington at Berklee's Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice: a celebration of women who inspired and supported Davis as she embarked on a career in music as "a woman, an immigrant, a parent, [and] a fan of avant-garde music." But where Carrington's New Standards strives to bring the works of women composers into the jazz canon, on Run the Gauntlet, Davis uses her own compositions to pay tribute to fellow pianists Geri Allen, Carla Bley, Marilyn Crispell, Angelica Sanchez, Sylvie Courvoisier, and Renee Rosnes. 

Davis was first exposed to Allen's work via Carrington's project, while Bley is a formative influence whose "Sing Me Softly of the Blues" Davis has covered, most recently on her Octopus duet album with Craig Taborn. Crispell, Sanchez, and Courvoisier have all released music on Davis's label. Crispell and Sanchez were role models in pursuing  experimental directions, while Courvoisier was an inspiration for Davis's use of prepared piano (a Davis trademark since 2011's Aeriol Piano, audible here on "Softly As You Wake" -- with gorgeous arco work from Hurst and wonderfully subtle accompaniment from Blake -- and the freely improvised "Subtones" that ends the album). 

Davis's fellow Canadian Rosnes (whose son Davis once babysat) and Sanchez served as exemplars of how to balance career and family. Waiting for You to Grow was made while Davis was pregnant with her son, who's now 11. A triptych of tunes on Run the Gauntlet, originally composed for Dave Holland's quartet, charts his growth, from the rhythmic irregularity of "First Steps" through the growing assurance of "Little Footsteps" (with a mightily grooving rhythm section) to the elegantly swinging "Heavy-footed" (which floats cascades of notes over Davis's steady left-hand comping). 

The title track showcases Blake's rhythmic flexibility and responsiveness as he negotiates a series of vamps, which also afford the leader ample opportunity to demonstrate the different facets of her burgeoning keyboard artistry. It's a good intro to the trio. "Knotweed," inspired by an oppressive invader to Davis's Massachusetts garden, glides along with a straight-ahead swing that belies the tune's title until the sprung-rhythm conclusion. Blake also contributed the lovely lyrical composition "Beauty Beneath the Rubble," which provides an oasis of calm in the middle of the album and is continued in the "Meditation" that follows it, replete with more exquisite arco bass and prepared piano.

Run the Gauntlet is a new milestone for Davis, and ranks with Waiting for You to Grow, Capricorn Climber, and Live at the Village Vanguard among her most accomplished works. Looking forward now to hearing her Solastalgia Suite, which she'll record in Poland with the Lutoslawski Quartet in November.