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Ache & Flutter
Shayna Dulberger Quartet (Empty Room Music)
by Clifford Allen
With an inordinate amount of history at one’s
fingertips, it’s often hard to imagine where a modern
musician may ‘start’, but creative figures somehow do
so and continue on path through combining spirit,
drive and necessary homework. Bassist Shayna
Dulberger has studied such masters as William Parker,
Peter Kowald and Wilbur Ware; increasingly visible on
the free music underground over the past near-decade,
Ache & Flutter is her second disc as a leader (though the
first was for unaccompanied bass/electronics).
Leading a quartet with guitarist Chris Welcome,
tenor saxophonist Yoni Kretzmer and drummer Carlo
Costa, the music on Ache & Flutter has been in gestation
since the group’s 2011 formation, if not longer. One
notices Dulberger’s playing immediately - simply put,
she’s a monster. With the propulsiveness of Parker, the
painterly rigor and energy of Kowald and the tone of
Ware, Dulberger is an extraordinary soloist steeped in
tradition and often placed forward in the mix. 4 of the
disc’s 11 pieces are, in fact, solo bass performances.
Following the a cappella “Whim”, “Heart Like a
Rabbit” opens with a slinky guitar-bass duet, soon
adding Costa’s microfilamental tap and Kretzmer’s
throaty and florid lines. Welcome’s guitar work is all
over with respect to the beat and as Kretzmer digs in
his heels, the rhythm section becomes subtly scattered.
“Doorways” is maddeningly lickety-split,
Kretzmer untying knots into searing snatches of Albert
Ayler, Clifford Jordan and Sam Rivers. Welcome is
unruly and consistently surprising; his solo section
begins lushly, though he quickly splays out into wiry
and scumbled shifts, leading into Costa’s airy piles.
Following the tugging solo pizzicato of “The
Spontaneous Combustion of Shayna Dulberger”,
which almost acts as a closer to the record’s first half,
“Cookie Cutter” presents martial reach and unsettled
footfalls unspooled into Welcome’s jittery twang and
gummy volume-pedal action. Dedicated to the late
Frank Lowe, “Lowed” is chunky and skirling, saying a
lot in a shade over three minutes, while “Crestfallen”
adds pitch-bending electronics to the quartet’s jagged
crovus. Ache & Flutter is a fine step in Dulberger’s
opus, presenting muscular and sensitive group and
solo music aware of its place in the continuum.
For more information, visit shaynadulberger.com. This
group is at Caffe Vivaldi May 2nd. See Calendar.
Super Eight
Secret Keeper (Intakt)
by John Sharpe
Sometimes you just have to put aside your
preconceptions. Such is the case with Super Eight, the
debut album from the twosome of guitarist Mary
Halvorson and bassist Stephan Crump under the
moniker Secret Keeper. This is not the Halvorson of the
lopsided songs for quintet showcased on last year’s
Bending Bridges (Firehouse 12) or the ferocious
improviser of her tenure in the various agglomerations
of saxophone iconoclast Anthony Braxton. Nor does
Crump provide the energetic incitement that propels
pianist Vijay Iyer’s tightly focused trio. Instead what
we get is a sequence of 14 intimate string duets in
which the two principals trade sounds in a completely
unselfconscious and non-hierarchical setting.
Halvorson deploys her usual staggering litany of
effects, even twisting notes to evoke a sitar on the
opening “Moom Song”. Crump contrasts and
complements, equally adept at wielding a bow to
extract eerie drones as plucking deeply resonant pedal
points. Both eschew obvious displays of virtuosity but
nonetheless draw a wide range of textures from their
respective axes. They combine responsively to create
pieces that evolve following their own inner logic,
based on intuition and timbral juxtaposition rather
than any preordained structure.
Five tracks clock in at less than a minute while
only two breast the five-minute marker. The shorter
numbers conjure a self-contained mood, varying from
perky “Ciclical” to abrasive “Aquarub”, while the
longer cuts allow for greater development of ideas and
stand out as a result. Pick of the bunch are the mercurial
“Toothsea”, which contains a notable passage of catchy
buoyancy amid its nine-minute span, and the dynamic
bite of the concluding “Secret Keeper”.
Ultimately, however, the set comes across as a
series of enigmatic private conversations, which only
fitfully engage, most notably on the more expansive
cuts. Hopefully these successes will act as a pointer for
more inclusive encounters on their next meeting.
For more information, visit intaktrec.ch. This duo is at
Cornelia Street Café May 4th. See Calendar.
Family Tree
Oregon (Sunnyside)
by Alex Henderson
Most of the groups that contributed to fusion’s vitality
during the ‘70s are long gone. Oregon, however, is a
rare example of a fusion-oriented outfit from that era
that has been continuously active. The band’s new
album features three of the four founding members:
Paul McCandless (soprano sax, oboe, bass clarinet,
flute), Ralph Towner (classical guitar, acoustic piano,
synthesizers) and Glen Moore (acoustic bass). The
fourth, drummer/percussionist Mark Walker, is a 1996
arrival.
Oregon has always played by its own rules, using
both electric and acoustic instruments, unlike
traditional jazz or fusion units. While Family Tree has a
lighter, folk-influenced approach than one might
expect from fusion, that doesn’t mean that the album
lacks depth or substance. Quite the contrary.
Memorable selections include the mysterious “The
Hexagram”, impressionistic “Mirror Pond” and
probing “Jurassic”.
World cultures continue to be a source of
inspiration for Oregon, and Towner specifically, who
incorporates elements of Indian music on “Bibo Babo”,
Middle Eastern aesthetics on “Creeper” and sounds of
the Caribbean on the good-natured “Carnival Express”.
Towner wrote 7 of the 12 pieces here, with McCandless
and Moore contributing a song each, along with a pair
of group compositions. Of the latter, “Max Alert” finds
Oregon briefly detouring into avant garde territory but
in a subtle way reminiscent of such Association for the
Advancement of Creative Musicians composers as
Roscoe Mitchell or Muhal Richard Abrams. The piece
is an interesting departure from the melodic fusion
that otherwise dominates this release.
Although not quite in a class with Oregon’s best
‘70s output, Family Tree demonstrates that these
fusion/world jazz survivors are still quite capable of
delivering solid and inspired albums.
For more information, visit camjazz.com. Paul McCandless
is at Blue Note May 5th with Combo Nuvo. See Calendar.
UNEARTHED GEM
BigBands Live
Duke Ellington Orchestra (JazzHaus Musik)
by Duck Baker
Presumably, many readers will have heard
something about the JazzHaus Musik label’s
archival series, including “BigBands Live”, of which
this is the second release. We are told that these are
being drawn from a vast body of previously
unreleased music recorded for German radio, some
of which dates back to the late ‘40s, and that the
sound quality is superior. The last is certainly true,
but much of what is on this CD, taken from a March
1967 gig, has seen the light of day previously, albeit
on a little remembered LP on the English label Jazz
Band (Live at Stuttgart, Vol. 1; Vol. 2 never appeared,
however). If memory serves, the sound quality for
this CD release is better than the original LP.
In any case, this is an exciting document of
Ellington’s late ‘60s working band, with an emphasis
on material of then-recent coinage. For many
listeners, the only very familiar tunes after the brief
statement of the theme are likely to be two Billy
Strayhorn masterpieces, “Johnny Come Lately” and
“Freakish Lights”, which is much better known as
“Blood Count” (“Freakish Lights” was a working
title). In fact, the inclusion of this Johnny Hodges
showcase will be one of the most significant things
about this release for hardcore fans, as Ellington
retired it after the definitive recording later in 1967
on And His Mother Called Him Bill and only a handful
of other live versions have been released. Other
titles that late-period Ellington fans will know are
“Tutti for Cootie”, a staple feature for Cootie
Williams after the trumpeter’s return to the fold in
1962, and “Le Plus Belle Africaine”, which entered
the book in 1966 and stayed until the end.
The balance of the material will only be familiar
to those who have studied this period, which was
certainly a strong one (the 2004 Storyville release,
The Jaywalker, features many of these tunes). The
Duke never rested and he and all his featured
soloists (also including Harry Carney, Lawrence
Brown and Paul Gonsalves) sound happy and
inspired on this excellent and easily recommended
release.
For more information, visit jazzhaus-label.com. Ellington
tributes are at Dizzy’s Club May 7th-12th and Blue Note
May 21st-26th. See Calendar.
THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORD | May 2013 15