Volume 25 Issue 7 - April 2020

Something in the Air
Forging a Guitar Identity in
Improvised Music
KEN WAXMAN
Probably the most popular instrument in the world in its various
forms, the guitar poses unique challenges for analytical players.
With the six-string front-and-centre in so many branches of
music, how can one forge an individual path? Yet each of the
plectrumists here has done so as uniquely as there are makes
of guitars.
For instance Nels Cline is in a situation
many others would envy. As lead guitarist
for American alternative rock band Wilco,
he has a steady gig with a large following.
Yet Cline has been an integral part of Los
Angeles’ improvised music scene since
the 1980s and immerses himself back
in that context any chance he gets. The
Radical Empathy Trio’s Reality and Other
Imaginary Places (ESP 5035 espdisk.com) is a recent example. During
two extended tracks the guitarist finds a place among the swirling
dynamics propelled by two committed improvisers: drummer Michael
Wimberley and keyboardist Thollem McDonas.
Propelling relaxed finger-style chording alongside McDonas’
acoustic piano on the second track and challenging a miasma of
swirling synthesized kinetics from the keyboardist with corrosive
string distortions on the first, Cline references either mainstream or
fusion jazz. Yet in both cases backed by explosive rattles and ruffs from
the drummer, confounding patterns trump convention. McDonas’
keyboard expression moves from sentient hunt-and-peck chording to
repetitive extraterrestrial-like glissandi during his solos. Cline’s amplified
bugle-like pulsations easily make common cause with McDonas’
distinctive sounds on the latter, as the guitarist’s gentling impressionistic
fills do with the first strategy. Despite on-the-mark finger-styling
guitar riffs alongside acoustic piano runs or knob-twisting guitar
flanging meeting kinetic keyboard expansions, no one would confuse
the two for Joe Pass with Oscar Peterson or, in the other case, with
Sun Ra meeting Jimi Hendrix. Still, the way Cline fits both roles, while
managing to propel his own guitar definition, demonstrates accomplishment.
His individual musical empathy – and that of the others
– comes across as radical as well as sympathetic, making the trio’s
name highly appropriate.
Far away from mainstream jazz and jazzrock
fusion are the specially configured
musical cycles of American guitarist Joe
Morris and British saxophonist Evan Parker
on The Village (Fundacja Słuchaj FSR
13/2019 sluchaj.org). A first-ever duo
recording, each player arrives with a
distinctive instrumental approach worked
out over years of experimentation. Copasetic but not compounded,
the key to the Morris-Parker duo is that neither abandons individual
expression while propelling tandem association in double counterpoint.
Sticking to moderated tenor saxophone smears on the nearly
40-minute opening, The Mound – a similar linkage with Parker’s
intense nasal soprano saxophone tones is highlighted on the other
brief track – the reedist’s multiphonics splutter, smear and slap beside
Morris’ canny use of pointed patterning that encompasses highpitched
stings sourced from near the tuning pegs and mid-range,
folksy strums. Meanwhile, as the duo’s key-in-lock cooperation is
activated, enough distance is maintained so that episodes of Parker’s
instantly recognizable circular breathing develop logically, as do those
passages when Morris’ string pressure gives the sequence a lowpitched
rhythmic feel. Eventually, scratching string fills backed by reed
vibrations confirm that each player has adapted enough of the other’s
distinctive approach to improvisation to create an intertwined finale.
Coordination and climaxes are also present
on Nomad Trio (Skirl Records 044 skirlrecords.com),
as a trio filled out by Americans,
pianist Matt Mitchell and drummer Jim
Black join Vancouver’s Gordon Grdina to
interpret six of his compositions. While only
the final Lady Choral picks up the exquisite
bass and treble patterns Grdina can create
using the multi-string oud, playing guitar his robust finger styling
sounds nothing like Morris’ introverted interval stings or Cline’s
throbbing rock-inflected fills. Instead his playing is both sharp and
swift, as if he’s an elated Jim Hall, coursing and flaring against the
drummer’s active clatter or cymbal rebounds, as the pianist slides
from maelstroms of circular patterning to measured stop-time clips.
The title tracks expresses how despite overbearing crescendos from
Mitchell, the guitarist can move from knotty and discursive runs to
electric knob-twisting and string bending without losing his cool.
As descriptive, Grdina’s string-and-fret architecture on Ride Home
allows for story-telling reflection, as he moves from note constriction
to expansive flanges. Meeting percussion splashes and processional
keyboard lines, guitar pulsations make the finale so connectively
opaque that it’s almost overbearing.
On the other hand, few tropes point out the diversity that can exist
among guitar-focused combos than the following sessions, both of
which include French cellist Valentin Ceccaldi. One-quarter of the
oddly named qÖÖlp group, the band’s eponymous CD (BMC CD 257
bmcrecords.hu) defines the symmetry expressed by a working group
that includes the cellist and his violin-playing brother Théo Ceccaldi,
as well as two Germans, guitarist Ronny Graupe and drummer
Christian Lillinger. With Graupe and Lillinger serving as the counterbalance
to the cultivated arco and pizzicato strategies of the Ceccaldis,
guitar motifs are all over the ten selections in solo features or in duo or
trio pairings. The antithesis to this is Points (MultiKulti Project
MPSMT 016 multikulti.com). Consisting of four lengthy improvisations,
the performances featuring cellist Ceccaldi and three Lisbonbased
players are better integrated. Connection is such in fact, that the
string shadings of guitarist Marcelo dos Reis sometimes almost vanish
into the synchronous sounds created by the blended textures of
percussionist Marco Franco, trumpeter Luis Vicente and the cellist.
On the qÖÖlp session, Graupe’s assertive
soloing is best defined on WröökJ. Sweeping
up from an interconnection of string-based
tones, the guitarist suddenly breaks out
rock-related runs that almost literally punch
a hole in the sequence and, backed by
Lillinger’s power pops, quickly expose a
series of frailing and plinking theme variations.
With a selection of moods ranging from refined to raw, the four
musicians take cohesion to its logical conclusion. No matter how
radical the motifs become, continuity remains. This is expressed best
on the textural framed finale of Get Together, when a combination of
energetic, near impenetrable ruffs from the drummer and intermittent
picking from the guitarist threaten to spin out of control before
being reined in. Additionally, there’s the, unusual-for-a-Europeanband,
track titled Toronto. Yet this stop-time near-ballad seems to
describe the city with a moody collection of sliding string harmonies.
In fact, when the four stretch out, as on extended tracks like
Mermaids and Sperm Whales the qÖÖlp members can dazzle.
Speedily they move from unison moderato expositions to delicate
66 | April 2020 thewholenote.com