Category: Tracks

Miss the tuba in jazz? Okay, admit that you’ve never even considered the issue before now and then check out “Coyote Cowboy”. Johnnie Valentino is “commemorating the 100th anniversary of the tuba’s demise as the keeper of the bass line in jazz,” a milestone that might have otherwise gone unremarked were it not for this disc of the oddly funky tuba-organ quintet tracks (filled out with percussion, clarinet, sax, and guitar). Valentino seduces the listener into a groove, forcing out a few sultry shoulder shrugs and toe taps at the very least and inspiring the more coordinated fans in the crowd to get up and join in a full-on, across-the-dance-floor parade. Each musician throws in a thoughtful take on the material; you’ve got eight minutes to find the beat and compliment them with a few moves of your own.

—MS

“Bitches Brew” always seemed to me like an un-reproducible masterpiece—the once in a lifetime result of capturing a bunch of really creative musicians in the studio. But just as Bang on a Can’s braintrust proved a few years back that Brian Eno’s previously unnotated studio-created Music for Airports could be transcribed and played back live by a group of musicians, the intrepid avant-rocker Henry Kaiser in an unlikely collaboration with free jazz guru Wadada Leo Smith has recreated Miles’s nearly half-hour of blessed-out funk. They show remarkable reverence and still find a few new things to say with it.

—FJO

I have an aural vision of Jewish-tinged music, and excepting a few raucous turns in the Hava Nagila at wedding receptions, “upbeat” is not generally one of the descriptors that comes to mind. But Paul Shapiro’s It’s in the Twilight dismisses all the lamentation lodged in my ear and clears the floor for some wine and celebration. He keeps up the beat though six original tracks and two traditional tunes, leaving not an inch of space for Babs or Itzhak to induce me to tears of melancholia. The bass and drums lay down a percussive foundation on Children of Abraham that sets the stage for a classic cartoon chase sequence, really, with an ever-changing leader and a good share of friendly intersections and re-routing along the way. It all fosters enough of an adrenaline surge to keep everyone’s enthusiasm up as the players dash towards the finish line.

—MS

The pensive chords dominating the opening of Timothy Polashek’s Porcupine Quest don’t immediately hint at the angular gestures, replete with dense clusters which hijack the solo piano piece into new territory. Riffs and phrases are asymmetrically placed in time and the usual fare we’re all used to gets unusually recast with a tinge of jazz—not the swing, but the spontaneity. With all these strange repetitions and octave displacements, I hear a composer railing against the long-lasting effects of species counterpoint homework. This is a perfect example of what Fux followers would deem an utter disaster. Way to go!

—RN

A poster to our Chatter section recently claimed that minimalism has had no real impact on European music. Tell that to the Italian Pierrot-plus-percussion groove machine Sentieri Selvaggi who play music by the Bang on a Can crowd as if it were as natural to them as singing bel canto. David Lang’s totally wacked out and utterly relentless I Fought the Law might be my new all-time party favorite.

—FJO

Get out your hydrophones, kids: rushing streams, crashing waves, and seagulls. Though by and large these sounds are digitally masked, one might start getting suspicious, judging from the electronic sounds culled by Joseph Waters, that the composer’s name is actually a not-so-subtle pseudonym. To be sure, liquefied references abound on the composer’s album titled Offshore. Waters’s chamber composition, Ocean Eyes—stop it already!—demonstrates an interesting contradistinction between past and present. Without the electronic processing, the music is almost indistinguishable from Romantic era fodder, but this all changes once the laptop is hooked up. Even if it’s difficult to pin down what exactly this music’s intentions may be, it’s easy to put your finger on how far the radical electronic transformations actually go here because we’ve heard this music before, or at least we know where it came from and where it’s going. So, does this exercise in familiarity really emphasize the electronic component over the live performance? Hardly, due to the fact the acoustic side of the music pokes through its digital veil often enough to maintain some sense of its identity. But then come special moments when, rather than merely enhancing a gesture, Waters wittingly annihilates it, instantaneously evaporating all sensibilities in one fell swoop and a mouse click.

—RN

Every now and then something arrives on my desk that is just so weird that even I can’t describe it. If you have any clues, by all means write in.

—FJO

Billy Martin, yes that Martin of usual Medeski and Wood company, breaks out on his own for this solo album recorded live at Tonic in 2002. A couple of tracks of stage chatter hike up the intimacy factor and clue the listener in on some particular Martin skills and fascinations, like his adoption of the Burundi drums. Really, though, the record is 14 solid tracks of beats and rhythms that challenge the notion that it’s just one guy behind the set. For those in the crowd who made it all the way to Finale (Part 3), the rewards of the evening were obviously well enjoyed.

—MS

Did you ever want to hop into that souped-up DeLorean with Michael J. Fox? Yeah, me neither; not unless I’m driving. If all you’re craving anyway is a little sonic blast from the past, then the mid-’80s have arrived in the form of Daniel Lentz’s On the Leopard Altar, a new CD reissue from Cold Blue Music. This Moog-heavy bliss-out is chalk full of Glass-like arpeggios, sans vibrato singing, and straight-forward chord progressions. Despite bearing clear signs of its own elderliness, the whole package has aged nicely—even the retro-sounding synth timbres get a pass. The album’s title track wears its cobwebs like haute couture, with drape of perky electronics and panoramic sound washes supporting its dreamy reverb drenched vocals. Actually, it sounds a little bit like what I’ve heard of Cory Dargel’s forthcoming album—very back to the future.

—RN

Imagine the ’70s guitar god trio of John McLaughlin, Al Dimeola, and Paco De Lucia in all their virtuosic abandon somehow captured in a completely fixed composition. While this certainly isn’t the first time the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet recorded member Andrew York’s minimalistic Andalucian-feeling composition—it was one of the first things he ever composed for the group—it’s nice to hear it sounding almost like standard repertoire when these guys play it now. York claims the title comes from “an ancient and powerful metaphysical incantation” that “should not be spoken out loud too many times.” Go figure…

—FJO