Bassist Max Johnson was born right around the time Sam Newsome, then still an inside player on tenor saxophone was beginning his recording career with his Criss Cross debut Sam I Am and in the groups of Terence Blanchard. About five years before Johnson began his avant jazz career in earnest, Newsome had begun devoting himself both to the soprano and unaccompanied performance, a pursuit he would document on several albums in the 21st Century.
These artists' paths met in 2022, with Johnson in his early thirties and Newsome the slightly grizzled veteran approaching sixty, when they began performing as a duo. Their debut album Tubes, five improvised pieces and a reading of Thelonious Monk's "Blue Monk", is non-hierarchical, a truly collaborative effort.
The title does not imply outré versions of tunes by '70s San Francisco psychedelic rock band The Tubes (which would be pretty nifty, actually); rather, it references preparations Newsome uses on his instrument to expand its tonal and textural possibilities (pictured nicely by Peter Gannushkin in the inside photograph from Brooklyn salon Barbès). Newsome is also credited with "toys", which sound like Art Ensemble-like little instruments.
Apart from the Monk, which Newsome plays reverently over a nice, slow lope from Johnson, and the explicit "Tubes & Keys", the titles are generally evocative. "Dust" is swirling and at times oppressive, ending with high-pitched arco and soprano emulating an ocarina. "Strangled Duck" may prompt calls to the ASPCA while "Grizzly Bear" seems less about the animal itself but the terror of one chasing you. The most interesting part of the album is the middle entry "Four Portraits", with circular breathing and some sort of clinking percussion juxtaposed against plaintive arco as an intro and then moving into three distinct sections in suite-like fashion, Newsome closing with a bagpipe impression. Listeners can decide for themselves if these are self-portraits, homages or abstract figures.
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