The Squid's Ear Magazine


Vandermark / Wooley / Courvoisier / Rainey: Noise Of Our Time (Intakt)

After reedist Ken Vandermark's residency at The Stone in 2016, he went into the studio with improvisers Nate Wooley on trumpet, Sylvie Courvoisier on piano, and Tom Rainey on drums to record this spectacular album of forward-reaching jazz using stunning technique and wonderful lyrical complexity, as they run through compositions from Wooley, Vandermark and Courvoisier.
 

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product information:

Personnel:



Nate Wooley-trumpet

Ken Vandermark-saxophone, clarinet

Sylvie Courvoisier-piano

Tom Rainey-drums


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UPC: 7640120193102

Label: Intakt
Catalog ID: ITK310.2
Squidco Product Code: 26452

Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 2018
Country: Switzerland
Packaging: Jewel Case
Recorded at Oktaven Audio, in Mount Vernon, New York, on August 17th, 2017, by Ryan Streber.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"It was only during Ken Vandermark's residency at the Jazz club The Stone in January 2016 that Vandermark found himself in the same vicinity as Nate Wooley, Sylvie Courvoisier and Tom Rainey. A year later they went into the studio with nine compositions - three each by Courvoisier, Vandermark and Wooley. These four musicians have well-documented, distinct personalities which, in this context, results in performances full of surprises, rich contrasts and shared responsibilities. The music sounds thoughtful, but never over-wrought. They play by intuition, yet retain a vivid complexity. Their composing is transparent and uncliched; their improvising provided with a remarkable coherence and openness. And perhaps it is exactly this - a fresh collective unity that keeps their respective personalities and idiosyncrasies intact - that brings them success in this bold and collaborative performance. Art needs to pique and renew your interest, take you on inspiring and surprising journeys and sometimes even confront your own biases. Creating, not reviving as a way to evolve and to keep going forward in all directions."-Intakt



"This summit of talent actually delivers what the title promises. The quartet creates an all-encompassing portrait of the state of the art, in which what might be thought noise is adroitly recontextualized in a musical situation. In a way that's what the members have been doing throughout their illustrious careers. Given their daunting skills as improvisers, perhaps the surprise here is that they do so through the medium of composition.

While Chicago reedman Ken Vandermark has forged connections across the world, his links with the New York scene have only really taken flight since his residency at The Stone, documented on Momentum 1: Stone (Audiographic Records, 2016). All three of the other participants appeared alongside him there, although trumpeter Nate Wooley already formed half of an inspired duo with the reedman. Pianist Sylvie Courvoisier and drummer Tom Rainey prove a similarly excellent fit in what could be seen as an avant-garde supergroup.

All but Rainey each contribute three concise but event-filled charts to the 44-minute program. Courvoisier supplies a cracking opener, repurposing her tune "La Cigale," here named "Checkpoint," as the setting for a series of adventurous solos. The cut begins in spectacular fashion with an explosive Vandermark soliloquy, before the ensemble kicks in.

In the tracks that follow, the compelling and diverse compositional frameworks allow the foursome to demonstrate their flair by all manner of means, from unaccompanied features like Wooley's swooshing exclamations and vocalized mutters on "VWCR," to duets such as that between Vandermark's squalling tenor and Rainey's tappy clip on "Tag," to striking juxtapositions exemplified by the silences scattered amid the deconstructed flow of "Truth Through Mass Individuation."

The palpable bond between the horn players shines during their spirited interplay on "Sparks" (a reimagining of Courvoisier's "Eclats For Ornette"). But it's just one strength among many. Rainey's flexible yet precise drumming, another major asset, performs a critical role in providing the connective tissue which unifies the nine pieces. He also forms a cohesive unit with Courvoisier, especially showcased in the sudden but stylistically varied piano/drum interjections which spice the horn drone in Wooley's "The Space Between the Teeth."

Vandermark's processional "Simple Cut" with its tolling minor key piano melody, serves as a wonderful, elegiac closing statement, its impact all the greater given the richness and density of what has come before."-John Sharpe, All About Jazz


Artist Biographies

"Nate Wooley was born in 1974 in Clatskanie, Oregon, a town of 2,000 people in the timber country of the Pacific Northwestern corner of the U.S. He began playing trumpet professionally with his father, a big band saxophonist, at the age of 13. His time in Oregon, a place of relative quiet and slow time reference, instilled in Nate a musical aesthetic that has informed all of his music making for the past 20 years, but in no situation more than his solo trumpet performances.

Nate moved to New York in 2001, and has since become one of the most in-demand trumpet players in the burgeoning Brooklyn jazz, improv, noise, and new music scenes. He has performed regularly with such icons as John Zorn, Anthony Braxton, Eliane Radigue, Ken Vandermark, Fred Frith, Evan Parker, and Yoshi Wada, as well as being a collaborator with some of the brightest lights of his generation like Chris Corsano, C. Spencer Yeh, Peter Evans, and Mary Halvorson.

Wooley's solo playing has often been cited as being a part of an international revolution in improvised trumpet. Along with Peter Evans and Greg Kelley, Wooley is considered one of the leading lights of the American movement to redefine the physical boundaries of the horn, as well as demolishing the way trumpet is perceived in a historical context still overshadowed by Louis Armstrong. A combination of vocalization, extreme extended technique, noise and drone aesthetics, amplification and feedback, and compositional rigor has led one reviewer to call his solo recordings "exquisitely hostile".

In the past three years, Wooley has been gathering international acclaim for his idiosyncratic trumpet language. Time Out New York has called him "an iconoclastic trumpeter", and Downbeat's Jazz Musician of the Year, Dave Douglas has said, "Nate Wooley is one of the most interesting and unusual trumpet players living today, and that is without hyperbole". His work has been featured at the SWR JazzNow stage at Donaueschingen, the WRO Media Arts Biennial in Poland, Kongsberg, North Sea, Music Unlimited, and Copenhagen Jazz Festivals, and the New York New Darmstadt Festivals. In 2011 he was an artist in residence at Issue Project Room in Brooklyn, NY and Cafe Oto in London, England. In 2013 he performed at the Walker Art Center as a featured solo artist.

Nate is the curator of the Database of Recorded American Music (www.dramonline.org) and the editor-in-chief of their online quarterly journal Sound American (www.soundamerican.org) both of which are dedicated to broadening the definition of American music through their online presence and the physical distribution of music through Sound American Records. He also runs Pleasure of the Text which releases music by composers of experimental music at the beginnings of their careers in rough and ready mediums."

-Nate Wooley Website (http://natewooley.com/about)
3/13/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Born in Warwick, Rhode Island on September 22nd, 1964, Ken Vandermark began studying the tenor saxophone at the age of 16. Since graduating with a degree in Film and Communications from McGill University during the spring of 1986, his primary creative emphasis has been the exploration of contemporary music that deals directly with advanced methods of improvisation. In 1989, he moved to Chicago from Boston, and has worked continuously from the early 1990's onward, both as a performer and organizer in North America and Europe, recording in a large array of contexts, with many internationally renowned musicians (such as Fred Anderson, Ab Baars, Peter Brötzmann, Tim Daisy, Hamid Drake, Terrie Ex, Mats Gustafsson, Devin Hoff, Christof Kurzmann, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Joe McPhee, Paal Nilssen-Love, Paul Lytton, Andy Moor, Joe Morris, and Nate Wooley). His current activity includes work with Made To Break, The Resonance Ensemble, Side A, Lean Left, Fire Room, the DKV Trio, and duos with Paal Nilssen-Love and Tim Daisy; in addition, he is the music director of the experimental Pop band, The Margots. More than half of each year is spent touring in Europe, North America, and Japan, and his concerts and numerous recordings have been critically acclaimed both at home and abroad. In addition to the tenor sax, he also plays the bass and Bb clarinet, and baritone saxophone. In 1999 he was awarded the MacArthur prize for music."

-Ken Vandermark Website (http://kenvandermark.com/2013/10/made-to-break-biography/)
3/13/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Sylvie Courvoisier is a pianist, composer and improviser. Born in Lausanne, Switzerland, Courvoisier moved to New York in 1998 and has lived in Brooklyn since that time.

Courvoisier has led several groups over the years and has recorded over 25 records as a leader or co-leader for different labels, notably ECM , Tzadik and Intakt Records and 30 cds as a sideperson. She has performed and recorded with John Zorn, Mark Feldman, Yusef Lateef, Ikue Mori, Tony Oxley, Tim Berne, Joey Baron, Joëlle Léandre, Herb Robertson, Butch Morris, Evan Parker, Mark Dresser, Ellery Eskelin, Lotte Anker, Fred Frith, Michel Godard, Tomazs Stanko among others. She has been commissioned to write music for concerts, radio, dance and theater. Since 1996, she has been touring widely with her own groups and as a side person in USA, Canada, Japan, Australia and Europe.

Currently, Courvoisier is the leader of her TRIO with Kenny Wollesen and Drew Gress. She performs regularly Solo and since 1997, in Duo with violinist Mark Feldman. She co-leads the Sylvie Courvoisier/Mark Feldman Quartet with Scott Colley and Billy Mintz. Since 2000, she has been a member of Mephista, an improvising collective trio with Ikue Mori and Susie Ibarra. She is currently playing and touring in different projects of John Zorn including Cobra and Masada Marathon. She is also playing in Erik Friedlander's Trio, Herb Robertson's Quintet and Nate Wooley's Quartet. Since 2010, she has been working as a pianist and composer for flamenco dancer Israel Galvan's project "la Curva" with more than 150 performances around the world.

Awards include Switzerland's 1996 Prix des jeunes créateurs; Zonta Club's 2000 Prix de la Création; Switzerland's 2010 Grand Prix de la Fondation Vaudoise de la Culture; 2013's NYFA (NewYork Foundation For the Art) Music/Sound Fellowship."

-Sylvie Courvoisier Website (http://www.sylviecourvoisier.com/bio.htm)
3/13/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Thomas "Tom" Rainey (born 1957, Santa Barbara, California) is an American drummer.

After attending Berklee College of Music he moved to New York in 1979. He has played with American jazz saxophonist and composer Tim Berne, and also with Nels Cline, Fred Hersch, Tony Malaby, Tom Varner, Drew Gress, Kenny Werner, Mark Helias, and Simon Nabatov. A prolific session musician, he has appeared on close to eighty recordings over a career spanning over 25 years.

He released his own first album, Pool School (Clean Feed), in 2010."

-Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Rainey)
3/13/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.


Track Listing:



1. Checkpoint 5:04

2. Track And Field 6:40

3. Sparks 3:44

4. The Space Between The Teeth 6:12

5. Tag 4:32

6. Songs Of Innocence 4:18

7. Vwcr 4:00

8. Truth Through Mass Individuation 4:04

9. Simple Cut 5:42

Related Categories of Interest:


Intakt
Improvised Music
Jazz
Free Improvisation
Chicago Jazz & Improvisation
NY Downtown & Metropolitan Jazz/Improv
Quartet Recordings
Ken Vandermark
Nate Wooley
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