This group led by Steve Swell presents a triptych dedicated to saxophonist Sam Rivers and his musical inspiration. The three pieces that make up the disc are hefty slabs of sound each at the twenty-minute mark or over. Each one starts with a swirl of group sound, which makes way for solos over the drums and bass accompaniments of Hilliard "Hill" Green on bass and Klaus Kugel on drums. The horns are Swell on trombone, Sabir Mateen on tenor, alto, flute and clarinet and Roy Campbell on trumpet and flugelhorn. The group has been rehearsing and performing regularly and forms a tight unit. The functioning esthetic is free improv, but the pieces seem to be structured or anchored in some pre-composed material.
"Journey to Omphalos" takes off with a sinewy solo from Mateen, whose tenor has the trenchant qualities that one longs for and expects in music of this sort, which is visceral and flighty, cutting to the quick of the moment with fragmented runs, meaty squawks and sustained long lines--a solo that is full of contrasts and sustained energy. An intense group interlude sets off the Mateen solo and Swell follows with an impassioned testimony of his own, spitting out some tight motives that recall the playing of Roswell Rudd, but with a searing edge of his own. This is closed up by Campbell's smears and ringing bursts of sound, gutturals and bleats and blats, all in a coherent expression that is simultaneously lyrical and pyrotechnic. Bassist Greene and Kugel have their own say as well to make sure the boat the band is sailing on gets to their desired destination which, if one goes by the titles of the tune and the disc, is the prophetic stone at Dephi, where the Oracle pronounced truths of what was to come. Here River's music seems to be that touchstone and the point of the journey is to awaken the Auricle (i.e. musical expression as mystical experience).
The journey continues in "Healix"'s slower, more low-key expression, almost as if the boat were afloat, the sailors at rest from the stormy winds of the first leg of the journey, but they all get there safe and enlightened in the end as the auricle/oracle speaks its mystic message in the final cut, "News from the Mystic Auricle," which starts with some quiet stirrings of sound from the different players, as silence is required to hear what will be spoken. The mystic quality is sustained and grows into an ecstatic celebration that winds down to understanding in the closing strains of the disc.
Comments and Feedback:
|