Matt Mitchell: Phalanx Ambassadors

Keyboardist Matt Mitchell is one of the busiest musicians in New York, working with such ornery conceptualists as Tim Berne, Henry Threadgill, Dave Douglas, Steve Coleman, and John Hollenbeck, among others. Phalanx Ambassadors, just his fourth release as a leader since 2013's Fiction, a duo set with percussionist Ches Smith, is the first documentation of this eponymous quintet. Mitchell is joined by Miles Okazaki on guitar, Patricia Brennan on vibes and marimba, Kim Cass on bass, and Kate Gentile on drums for passionate performances of Mitchell’s fascinatingly intricate compositions. Okazaki, also a mainstay of Coleman’s groups, characterizes Mitchell’s compositions as an “endlessly branching decision tree ...” The composer himself declares his pieces here as “the most challenging music I’ve ever written for a band ...” Mitchell, equally adept on piano and all manner of electronic keyboards, sticks mostly to the acoustic variety for this session, which had a lengthy gestation of composing and rehearsals until the ensemble was ready to document the compositions in a studio. The band slams into stretch goal to open the show, with Gentile’s busy drums leading the way. Bassist Cass takes a complex and propulsive solo next, followed by a brisk turn by Mitchell. After barely two minutes, you’re either thoroughly captivated by the dense goings-on, or you’re ready to stop and turn to something more easily apprehended. Put me firmly in the captivated camp, since as soon as I made my way through this 45-minute project for the first time, I was more than ready to take it from the top all over again to try and attend to more of the details that fly by. Terse melodies, unexpected harmonic twists, surprise dissonances, and forceful polyrhythms combine with the unerring commitment of the players to make Mitchell’s difficult music utterly absorbing as it unfolds. (Makes for great headphone listening, by the way, for the opportunity to concentrate and hear more detail.) Mitchell notes one of his recurrent goals “in creating music such as this: to try and make something that will continually and variably make sense, even as it sometimes doesn’t until it does.” Let that percolate in your brain for a spell, then turn your attention to Phalanx Ambassadors for a healthy dose of idiosyncratic and beautifully realized performances that fulfill that goal admirably. Highly recommended.
Pi Recordings PI81; Matt Mitchell (p; Prophet 6 synth on *) Miles Okazaki (el g) Patricia Brennan (vib, marimba) Kim Cass (b) Kate Gentile (d); Rhinebeck, NY, December 13-14; stretch goal/ taut pry/ zoom romp/ phasic haze ramps/ ssgg/ be irreparable*/ mind aortal cicatrix; 45:41. pirecordings.com