Samo Salamon & François Houle: Unobservable Mysteries/Samo Salamon & Hasse Poulsen: String Dancers (Pandemic duos, #3 & #4)

Stuck at home in Slovenia because of the coronavirus pandemic, guitarist Samo Salamon reached out via email to the Canadian clarinetist François Houle to propose a long distance collaboration. Despite having some mutual musical colleagues, the two had never played together. Houle was quite enthusiastic about the idea. That was the genesis of Unobservable Mysteries by Samo Salamon & François Houle, an especially apt title for this series of duets made in a unique fashion. To build these tracks, Salamon first recorded half a dozen improvisations on acoustic guitar. Houle responded to them with his own improvised part, then laid down more solo tracks for Salamon to add his guitar. From listening, it’s impossible to discern how any of the pieces began. I might guess that Cradles, for instance, began with Houle’s clear tones and Salamon’s spidery guitar was the response, or that Hum and Sway was first a sequence of spacious guitar phrases before the clarinet played a melody over them, but I’d probably be wrong. No matter: Salamon and Houle prove to be quite compatible, combining a playful attitude with a slightly brittle sense of melody and the fearless momentum of their rhythms. While I was especially taken with Garden of Dust, nearly six minutes of deliciously rambunctious interplay, the eleven tracks never failed to hold my interest and repay my attention with music worth exploring again and again. 

During the pandemic, guitarist Samo Salamon also reached out via email to fellow guitarist Hasse Poulsen, who agreed to work with him on a duet project. The result was the genuinely lovely String Dancers, with Samo Salamon & Hasse Poulsen each playing acoustic instruments. Both men also contributed ideas for the tunes, to the extent that Salamon describes them as co-writers. The brief notes that they each penned for the release emphasize the ease with which this set came together. From how Salamon and Poulsen interact and anticipate one another’s improvisatory directions, you’d think that they had been playing together for quite some time, but you’d be wrong. The duo’s strategies range from out of tempo pieces like the spacious Sometimes a Bird and the scruffy give and take of Mind Fuel to the insistent Free Noses and the engaging call and response structure of A Word We Heard. With the already porous line between improvisation and composition thoroughly obliterated in these spirited encounters, the listener is plunged into the sheer mystery of making something from nothing, a situation to be embraced by musicians and audience alike. Definitely recommended. 

Samo Records; François Houle (cl) Samo Salamon (6- & 12-string guitars); Maribor, Slovenia (Salamon) & Vancouver, BC, 2020; Secret Pools/ Roots and Seeds/ Common Sense Mutters/ Cradles/ Garden of Dust/ Island of Shade/ Hum and Sway/ Jug of Breath/ Unobservable Mysteries/ The Wanderings of Water/ Longing Leaving Staying; 54:13. 

Samo Records; Samo Salamon (6- and 12-string acoustic guitars) Hasse Poulsen (6 string acoustic guitar); Maribor, Slovenia (Salamon) & Paris, France (Poulsen, probably), June and July 2020; Ultra Serieux/ Austrian Lake/ Coverless/ Two Sides of a Mountain/ Sometimes a Bird/ Free Noses/ Soft Grass/ String Dancers/ Mind Fuel/ Cornering/ The Scent of Rain / A Word We Heard; 51:54. www.samosalamon.com

Simon Moullier Trio: Countdown

The Simon Moullier Trio adroitly reinvents a number of familiar jazz compositions and a couple of standards on their beautifully realized debut Countdown. A lineup of vibes, bass, and drums is not that common; more often than not, there’s a piano or guitar included to make it a quartet. But vibraphonist Moullier and his bandmates Luca Alemanno on bass and Jongkuk Kim on drums seem perfectly at home in the trio configuration. The combination of the unusual setting with relatively well-known material makes for a special listening experience. Especially fine are the two Thelonious Monk tunes, Work and Ask Me Now, Charles Mingus’ immortal ode to Lester Young, the much-recorded Goodbye Pork Pie Hat, and the trio’s bouncy look at Jerome Kern’s The Song Is You. The hard-driving drummer Kim is impressive throughout the set, keeping things moving smartly. His featured role on Tadd Dameron’s Hot House is a delight. The steady Alemanno acts as a fulcrum between the drums and vibes, with a couple of exceptional solos along the way, while Moullier’s bright vibes sound and his astute sense of melodic invention lead the way. Countdown is an elegantly creative and rewarding release. 

Fresh Sounds New Talent FSNT-622; Simon Moullier (vbs) Luca Alemanno (b) Jongkuk Kim (d); NYC, May 2020, except *Los Angeles, CA, November 2017; Countdown/ Work/ I Concentrate On You/ Goodbye Pork Pie Hat/ Nature Boy/ Turn Out the Stars/ The Song Is You/ Beijo Partido/ Hot House/ *Ask Me Now; 41:26. www.freshsoundrecords.com

Julian Lage: Squint

  With Squint, his debut as a leader for Blue Note Records, guitarist Julian Lage completes an unusual musical relay. It goes like this: towards the end of the 1950's, saxophonist Boots Randolph prevailed upon young vibraphonist Gary Burton to move to Nashville, where he made his earliest recordings with Randolph, guitarist Hank Garland, and pianist Floyd Cramer. That sojourn lasted for a couple of years, until Burton relocated to New York. The first Gary Burton quartet with Larry Coryell on guitar recorded Duster in 1967. Coryell was succeeded by, among others, Jerry Hahn, Mick Goodrick, and Pat Metheny in various Burton units over the years. In 2003, Burton introduced his new band, bringing Julian Lage to immediate prominence. Lage went on to record four CDs with Burton, with his own first record as a leader for EmArcy in 2009. Now Lage himself has completed the circle by moving to Nashville, where he recorded Squint at home and at the legendary Sound Emporium Studios. Anyone who’s heard any of the Burton titles or Lage’s collaborations with fellow guitarist Nels Cline (Room, 2014; and Currents, Constellations, 2018) knows that Lage is a consistently exciting and inventive player. His trio of the last few years featuring Jorge Roeder on bass and Dave King on drums has attained a beautifully poised sound and they more than do justice to Lage’s tuneful originals. The opening Etude is a relaxing solo piece, welcoming us to the session. Eight Lage compositions by the trio are on the program, along with Johnny Mercer’s Emily, popular with improvisers since its debut in 1964, and the more obscure Call of the Canyon, by Billy Hill, sung first by Frank Sinatra with Tommy Dorsey in 1940 and later by Gene Autry in a 1942 film of the same name. Highlights include the perky groove of Saint Rose, the sweetly delicate treatment of Emily, the trenchant interplay of the trio on the up-tempo Familiar Flower, and the utterly relaxed Short Form. Squint is happily recommended. 

Blue Note B08Y4H43VJ; Julian Lage (el g) Jorge Roeder (b) Dave King (d); Nashville, TN, August 15-19, 2020; Etude (solo guitar)/ Boo's Blues/ Squint/ Saint Rose/ Emily/ Familiar Flower/ Day and Age/ Quiet Like a Fuse/ Short Form/ Twilight Surfer/ Call Of The Canyon; 45:32. www.bluenote.com

William Parker: Mayan Space Station

  Could it be? Could this smoking-hot power trio be the preeminent bassist/composer William Parker with the equally masterful Gerald Cleaver on drums and guitarist Ava Mendoza? The happy answer is yes, indeed, this is Mayan Space Station, another of the boldly unpredictable twists and turns in Parker’s burgeoning discography. Guitarist Mendoza leads the charge with her boldly distorted sound and wailing solos, and that power fits right in with Parker’s uncanny time and Cleaver’s lively drumming, with special attention to his tom-toms and cymbals. It’s a thrill a minute as these three go head to head to head on Parker’s grooves with their, seemingly basic melodies that generate extended triologues. From the loping headlong swing of Domingo to the hard-riding sway of Mayan Space Station to the jagged and fearsomely complex Canyons of Light, the trio’s music is enthralling, dynamically intense, and overflowing with the shared joy of creating something new. Not to be missed! And make sure to investigate, via download or the CD version, the jumpy surge of the trio on Rocas Rojas and the cheerful jamming that pervades The Wall Tumbles Down. The two tracks amount to about 20 minutes of music that doesn’t fit on the vinyl version. 

AUM Fidelity AUM115; Ava Mendoza (el g) William Parker (b) Gerald Cleaver (d); Brooklyn, NY, February 2020; Tabasco/ Rocas Rojas*/ Domingo/ Mayan Space Station / Canyons of Light/ The Wall Tumbles Down *[ * CD / DL only ]; 58:08. aumfidelity.com

Ikue Mori/Satoko Fujii + Natsuki Tamura: Prickly Pear Cactus (Pandemic duos and trios, #2)

  Ikue Mori/Satoko Fujii + Natsuki Tamura have their own file-trading project, Prickly Pear Cactus. Step right into their world of bleeps, bloops, distorted piano, and a myriad of other-worldly noises on the opening title track, where electronic musician Mori and pianist Fujii are joined by Fujii’s husband, the audacious trumpeter Natsuki Tamura. It’s the kind of onslaught that separates the potential audience into those who are merely curious and those who are thrilled by the passionate creativity that’s displayed. Count me among the fiercely committed, open to whatever weirdness these radically adventuresome players provide. The blend of Fujii’s piano musings, full of surprising leaps and startling shifts in tempo, with Mori’s everything but the kitchen sink electronics is unusually absorbing. Tamura’s bravura trumpet stylings add another layer of craziness to the proceedings on four tracks. With Fujii and Tamura at home in Kobe City, Japan, and Mori at home in New York, the pieces evolved in various ways, with Mori providing the final mix and edits. The line between composition and improvisation, shaky at best in a wide variety of situations, becomes more blurred in the deliberate and time-delayed nature of the file sharing process. Even more than usual with improvised music, a blow-by-blow description of the music on Prickly Pear Cactus would be totally beside the point. So I’ll just say that Prickly Pear Cactus is a gas, and one of the few positive ramifications of the Earth’s plague year. Great on headphones, too! 

Libra 203-062; Natsuki Tamura (tpt on *) Satoko Fujii (p) Ikue Mori (elec); NYC (Mori) & Kobe City (Fujii & Tamura), 2020; Prickly Pear Cactus*/ Sweet Fish/ Guerrilla Rain/ Mountain Stream*/ Overnight Mushroom/ Empty Factory/ In the Water*/ Turning/ Muddy Stream*/ Sign; 53:50. librarecords.com

Three-Layer Cake: Stove Top (Pandemic duos and trios, #1)

  As technology evolved over the decades, recorded music changed from being a documentation of an event in real time to the manipulation of sounds made at different times and places. It no longer became necessary to assemble a group of musicians in the same setting to move from nothing to a finished product. Mark Dresser pioneered the use of what he termed “telematics,” the interface of performance, communication networks and computers to provide, in his words, the “ability of musicians to perform live together despite geographical separation.” That’s one way to collaborate remotely. Another method involves transmitting digital music files to build an album in what amounts to an extension of overdubbing and remixing in an improvisational context. A number of pandemic-related duos and trio projects made by this method have been released in 2021. Here’s a look at some of them ...

First up is Three-Layer Cake, the name that guitarist Brandon Seabrook, electric bassist Mike Watt, and percussionist Mike Pride have given to their new project, with each musician recording at home. Seabrook was in Brooklyn, Watt was in San Pedro, California, and Pride, who mixed the music, was in Chester, New York, during the October-December 2020 period when Stove Top was put together. The RareNoise label lives up to its name with this collection of fractured grooves, gonzo guitaristics and trippy banjo stylings, along with sprinklings of glockenspiel and organ. The brash unpredictability of the music is no surprise at all, considering that all three players have boldly ignored genre limitations throughout their careers. Bassist Watt started out in the Minutemen (1980-1985), worked with Nels Cline in the late Nineties, and joined Iggy Pop for a decade, among many other projects. Most recently he was part of the crew that recorded A Love Supreme Electric - A Salvo Inspired by John Coltrane in late 2019. String-man Seabrook made his recording debut with a John Zorn project in 2003, and has gone on to play with the likes of trumpeter Peter Evans, bassist Ben Allison, drummer Gerald Cleaver, and the collective Mostly Other People Do The Killing. His duo with pianist Simon Nababtov was recently issued by Leo Records in England. Percussion whiz Pride has made music with a wildly varied cast of characters, including Anthony Braxton, Jason Stein, Nels Cline, political punk band Millions of Dead Cops, his own bands (including From Bacteria To Boys, Drummer’s Corpse, and I Hate Work), and a couple of coop trios, Pulverize the Sound, with Peter Evans and Tim Dahl, and Period, with Charlie Looker and Chuck Bettis. These guys are insanely busy, at least in normal times, and it took Watt’s podcast to make this collaboration happen. After Pride appeared on The Watt From Pedro Show, where the two really connected, the drummer proposed a project for them to work on together. Pride brought Seabrook into the picture, and Three-Layer Cake was born. Most of the pieces began with Pride recording drum tracks for Watt to play over, with Seabrook adding his own special spice on top. The guitarist was the instigator on the luminous Shepherds, with shimmering glockenspiel and a spacious bass line from Watt. The bassist took the lead for Ballad of the Gobsmacked, which closes the disc with two minutes of mysterious stop-and-go rhythms. There’s never a dull moment on Stove Top and plenty of musical twists and turns for your extended pleasure. Recommended. 

RareNoise RNR0128 (CD)/RNR128LP (green vinyl); Brandon Seabrook (g, bjo, tapes) Mike Watt (el b) Mike Pride (d, glock, bells, org); Brooklyn, NY (Seabrook), San Pedro, CA (Watt) & Chester, NY (Pride), October-December 2020; Beatified, Bedraggled, and Bombed/ Big Burner/ A Durable Quest/ Shepherds/ Tiller/ Primary Fuel/ Luminous Range - Anxious Valve/ Ballad of the Gobsmacked; 40:06. www.rarenoiserecords.com

Samuel Blaser & Marc Ducret: Audio Rebel

Sonic adventurers Samuel Blaser & Marc Ducret took an actual journey from their European home base and did a short tour as a duo in Brazil. At the start of the pandemic, trombonist Blaser rummaged around in his archives and emerged with the audacious Audio Rebel, recorded at a small studio/concert space of that name in Rio de Janeiro, in September 2013. Ducret’s odd guitar whang and Blaser’s wah-wah trombone open the show, with their boisterous and inventive character on full display from the very start. Blaser’s tone is sublime, lush with overtones. Listen closely to Rio for a prime example. Part of the fun of this release is the continually changing blend of Blaser’s cornucopia of sounds with Ducret’s variations of pedals and physical approaches to the guitar. Trombonists were altering their sound with an almost endless array of cups, hats and other implements long before electric guitar and effects boxes came along. Ducret and Blaser are clearly having a great time together with musical ideas generated by one or the other, bounced around, and transmuted into something entirely different. I frequently get the feeling that these spontaneous musical dialogues are a mere extension of their traveling partnership, as if the political discussion that went unresolved for the pair at dinner is being continued in another realm. Ducret’s spiky guitar and his similarly thorny note choices make for an appealing contrast when juxtaposed with Blaser’s rounder sound. Especially fine passages include Ducret’s feverish solo at the half-way point of Rio, the crassly distorted approaches both men employ for the opening minutes of São Paulo, and the casual synchronization of the relaxed closer, Le blues de l’Ombra. This one will grow on you, rewarding your concentration with a seriously enjoyable musical experience. Happily recommended. 

Blaser Music; Samuel Blaser (tbn) Marc Ducret (g); Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, September 2013; Audio Rebel/ Rio/ L’ampleaur des dégâts/ La voie grise/ São Paulo/ Cabo Frio/ Le blues de l’Ombra; 47:11. samuelblaser.bandcamp.com

Flow Trio with Joe McPhee: Winter Garden

  Multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee, playing only tenor saxophone, joins the aptly named Flow Trio for a vigorous and roof-raising session of free jazz on Winter Garden. As producer and ESP-Disk general manager Steve Holtje notes, however you date the appearance of free improvisation (Lennie Tristano in 1949, Ornette Coleman in 1960, or Albert Ayler around the same time), free jazz “has existed for over half of jazz’s recorded history.” Playing trumpet, Joe McPhee made his recording debut in 1968, on Clifford Thornton’s Freedom And Unity album, so he’s been a participant in much of that history. Here he is, hundreds of sessions later, still on the scene and working with like-minded musicians around the globe. As ever, his distinctive fiery approach fits in perfectly, broadening the Flow Trio’s already formidable attack. Saxophonist Louie Belogenis, bassist Joe Morris, and Charles Downs (a/k/a Rashid Bakr) on drums have been together on and off since their 2004 debut CD, The Flow, a live set on Ayler Records, with a second Ayler release in 2009 from another performance. Winter Garden is a glorious collection of instant compositions by the quartet, accommodating full-bore blowouts like the opening Rabble-Rouser and the squawky and relentless Incandescence along with pieces that tend to be quieter and more conversational, like Recombinant, with its 3-note riff passed around the band from sax to bass and back, the gently meandering and quite lovely Glistening, and the elegiac closer, Winter Garden, which bathes the listener in beauty for the last minute or so. An early ESP slogan was “You never heard such sounds in your life.” That wasn’t just hype, it was the truth, and it remains the truth as long as there are committed and adventurous musicians like McPhee and the Flow Trio who create their music totally in the moment. Definitely recommended. 

ESP-Disk' ESP5040; Joe McPhee (ts) Louie Belogenis (ts, ss) Joe Morris (b) Charles Downs (d); Brooklyn, NY, January 11, 2020; Rabble-Rouser/ Recombinant/ Harbinger/ Incandescence/ Glistening/ Accretion/ Winter Garden; 57:42. www.espdisk.com