Cuong Vu 4-Tet - Ballet: The Music Of Michael Gibbs (RareNoiseRecords 2017)

On the heels of his acclaimed 2016 recording, Cuong Vu Trio Meets Pat Metheny (Nonesuch Records), and his 2014 collaboration with electro-acoustic pianist-composer and Director of the School of Music at the University of Washington Richard Karpen on their Ellington-Strayhorn tribute That The Days Go By And Never Come Again (RareNoiseRecords), trumpeter-composer Cuong Vu joins forces with guest guitarist Bill Frisell on Ballet, a tribute to renowned composer-arranger Michael Gibbs.

With regular Vu 4Tet bassist Luke Bergman and drummer Ted Poor, the four exchange ideas in the moment in a collective fashion on the expansive opening track, “Ballet,” which gradually morphs into a kind of quirky, dissonant blues waltz featuring brilliant solos from Vu and Frisell. The ethereal ballad “Feelings and Things” showcases Frisell’s more sensitive and spacious side while Vu turns in a remarkably lyrical solo here. “Blue Comedy,” a tune recorded by the Gary Burton Quartet (with Larry Coryell, Steve Swallow and Bob Moses) on 1968’s In Concert, kicks off with a drum salvo from Poor before Frisell and Vu join together on some tight unisons through the intricate head. As the piece progresses, it picks up a kind of shuffle-swing momentum which Frisell solos over with his signature fractured phrasing and surprising detours. Vu and Poor engage in some spirited exchanges near the end of this jaunty number. The most dramatic piece on the album, “And on the Third Day,” which originally appeared on Gibbs’ 1970 self-titled debut album, evolves gradually from a peaceful opening drone to a turbulent crescendo featuring powerful. soaring solos from both Vu and Frisell, the latter power chording with impunity and kicking on his fuzz box and backwards pedal for maximum effect.

“This recording came about as Bill’s wish to bring Mike Gibbs out to the University of Washington to do some of his arrangements of Bill’s music for orchestra,” says Vu. “Mike is indeed an iconic hero to Bill and it all came about from Bill’s desire to bring him to the UW.  I asked the boss, Director of the School of Music, Richard Karpen, and he gave us the green light because he wanted to honor Bill. We did two nights with the first night being the orchestra night and the second being the big band night (both student ensembles). The quartet of Bill, Ted Poor, Luke Bergman and myself was a featured part of those (both the orchestra and the big band) performances. In addition to that, the quartet (sans orchestra/big band), played Mike’s music as the second set each night. This recording is from the second night.”

Regarding this exhilarating Vu 4Tet project, Vu says,

“This was a very collective/equal opportunity effort, so we just played and dealt with the cards collectively as they were dealt. I think it just comes down to the collection of players and our individual aesthetics coming together and trying to find a common goal/language.”

They succeed in triumphant fashion on Ballet, the second collaboration between Cuong Vu and Bill Frisell (their first was Vu’s 2005 ArtistShare album Mostly Residual).

1 Ballet

2 Feelings and Things

3 Blue Comedy

4 And on the Third Day

5 Sweet Rain 

Cuong Vu - trumpet

Bill Frisell - guitar

Luke Bergman - bass

Ted Poor - drums

Bill Brovold & Jamie Saft - Serenity Knolls (RareNoiseRecords 2017)

Jamie Saft has been a significant presence on RareNoiseRecords since the label’s inception: as band leader on New Zion w. Cyro’s ‘Sunshine Seas’ (on piano, analogue keyboards, bass and guitar with percussionist Cyro Baptista) and on The New Standard (on piano and organ with bassist Steve Swallow and drummer Bobby Previte), on celebrated quartet collaborations with Wadada Leo Smith (Red Hill, on piano) and Roswell Rudd (Strength&Power, on piano), as well as on a number of deep free music collaborations involving Joe Morris (Slobber Pup, Plymouth, The Spanish Donkey, on organ and analogue keyboards).Now, on Serenity Knolls, he stakes out some completely different territory. An intimate duo project with guitarist Bill Brovold, a former member of such New York no-wave bands as the Rhys Chatham Ensemble, the East Village Orchestra and the Zen Vikings, it features Saft alternating between playing dobro and lap steel on a set of 12 ambient type tunes with a distinctive heartland undercurrent to them.An accomplished keyboardist-composer who has been widely acknowledged for his work with various John Zorn projects, including The Dreamers, Electric Masada and Moonchild, the Queens native and current resident of Kingston in upstate New York has nonetheless has maintained a longstanding relationship with the guitar.As he explains, “I've played guitar since I was a youth as well as bass guitar, so this isn't something new for me at all.

In fact, my guitar playing is featured on many of my albums such as Breadcrumb Sins (Tzadik), Sunshine Seas (RareNoise) and Black Shabbis (Tzadik) as well as being prominently featured in my original score for the Oscar nominated film Murderball."On Serenity Knolls, Saft is paired with the legendary improviser, woodworker, instrument builder and leader of Larval, an influential Detroit improvising post-rock ensemble. “I met Bill in upstate New York where we both currently live in the Hudson Valley,” says Jamie. “Bill is a beautiful and diverse friend and it's a pleasure to improvise music with him.” 

On spacious tracks like “Sweet Grass,” “Saddle Horn,” “The Great American Bison” and the title track, Saft creates that high and lonesome feel with his expressive slide guitar playing. He switches to lap steel on the droning “Bemidji,” “No Horse Seen” and the minor key “Greybull.”

“I've been fascinated by slide guitar styles for many years,” he says. “Initially I was exposed to these sounds through Bob Dylan's music, which quickly led me to the universes of country and bluegrass music. I wouldn't say I have specific role models for slide guitar — for me it is a means to produce sustained events from a guitar. I take a more orchestral approach to the instrument. I'm far from a great technician on these instruments. I’d never profess to be in the same league in any way as the legends of pedal steel and dobro. But to me, they are sonic tools to achieve a particular goal.”
Recorded at Potterville International Sound in Kingston, New York and mixed there by Saft and his colleague Christian Castagno (the same engineer who co-produced and mixed 2016’s Sunshine Seas), Serenity Knolls carries a compelling vibe created by Brovold’s atmospheric guitar in combination with Saft’s melodic gems on dobro and lap steel.

“This concept came from improvisations Bill and I were doing at house parties,” Saft explains. “Combining the ambient feeling of Bill's unprocessed big hollow body Guild guitar through a Silverface Fender Vibrolux amplifier and the liquid sound of the dobro and lap steel guitar through a 1950's Alamo Amplifier with subtle tape echo enhancements was the intent. We sought to capture something inspired by the American landscape — the Great American Bison, endless highways, Plains drifting — filtered through a distinctly psychedelic lens. It began with the idea of making music that was ‘Country Ambient’ and arrived at something of an alternative state of consciousness.

“Serenity Knolls is both an ideal state of mind as well as the name of the rehab center where Jerry Garcia died.” 

Sweet Grass

Mitchimakinak

Saddle Horn

Wendigo

Thermopolis

The Great American Bison

Bemidji

No Horse Seen

Splintering Wind

Greybuli

Serenity Knolls

Silent Midpoint

Bill Brovold: electric guitar

Jamie Saft: dobro, lap steel guitar

Led Bib - Umbrella Weather (RareNoiseRecords 2017)

Easily the most adventurous and audacious outfit on today’s UK jazz scene, Led Bib has built a reputation over the course of seven albums for expansive improvisations and treks into genre-defying music of throbbing intensity. All Music Guide called their singular brand of jazz “explosive enough to blow up your speakers” while The Wire weighed in with: “This is the sound of a band having fun...like a hot chainsaw through butter.” For their RareNoiseRecords debut, the five-piece group from London continues pushing the envelope on Umbrella Weather.

Fueled by the muscular drumming of ringleader Mark Holub and the intense fuzz bass lines of Liran Donin, further tweaked by atmospheric washes and crunchy keyboard action from Toby McLaren and sparked by the pungent twin alto saxes of Peter Grogan and Chris Williams, Led Bib stakes out a unique spot in the musical terrain that falls somewhere between the realms of John Zorn, Ornette Coleman, Charles Mingus and Eric Dolphy, all imbued with a very strong jazz-rock sensitivity.

From the odd-metered opener “Lobster Terror” to their raucous textures on “Too Many Cooks,” from the fuzz-inflected mayhem of “Skeleton Key to the City” to the turbulent “At The Shopping Centre,” the expansive 5-minute ambient jam on “Insect Invasion” and the surprisingly lyrical waltz-time closer “Goodbye,” this renegade outfit never fails to inject an element of surprise into each potent track. And while certain pieces like “Ceasefire”, “The Boot” or the groove-heavy “Women’s Power” may seem like well-crafted and tightly executed compositions,

Holub explains that most of the music heard on Umbrella Weather comes about organically in the studio through a keen sense of collective intuition honed over the past 13 years of playing together.

“In general, very little is written. We are mostly working in a typical jazz style of head-solos-head but in almost every tune the solos are completely open. This concept of free improvisation is a tricky one because it has become a genre all its own, but we are looking at it in a different way. With some of the tunes, we are sort of composing in the moment, rather than the sort of free association that is often thought of as free-improvisation." Read more...

01. Lobster Terror

02. Ceasefire

03. On The Roundabout

04. Fields Of Forgetfulness

05. Too Many Cooks

06. Women’s Power

07. Insect Invasion

08. At The Shopping Centre

09. Skeleton Key To The City

10. The Boot

11. Marching Orders

12. Goodbye

MARK HOLUB : DRUMS

PETE GROGAN : ALTO SAXOPHONE

CHRIS WILLIAMS : ALTO SAXOPHONE

LIRAN DONIN : BASS

TOBY MCLAREN : KEYBOARDS