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Berne's, Tim Snakeoil: The Deceptive 4 Live [2 CDs] (Intakt)

The long-established Snakeoil quartet led by New York saxophonist Tim Berne, with Matt Mitchell on piano, Oscar Noriega on bass and B-flat clarinet, and Ches Smith on drums & percussion, are heard live in three settings over two CDs — at Firehouse 12 in 2017; at IBEAM in New York in 2010; and at Roulette in NY in 2009 — showing the band's evolution of expressive power.
 

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product information:

Personnel:



Tim Berne-alto saxophone

Matt Mitchell-piano

Oscar Noriega-bass clarinet, Bb clarinet

Ches Smith-drums, percussion


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UPC: 7640120193584

Label: Intakt
Catalog ID: ITK358.2
Squidco Product Code: 29721

Format: 2 CDs
Condition: New
Released: 2020
Country: Switzerland
Packaging: Cardboard Gatefold 3 Panels
CD 1 recorded live at Firehouse 12, in New York, on Dec 1st, 2017, by Nick Lloyd.

CD 2 recorded live at IBEAM, in New York, on June 15th, 2010, by by Joseph Branciforte, and at Roulette, in New York, on November 21st, 2009.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"Tim Berne's Snakeoil, this group that has grown into a conspired unit over many years, presents with The Deceptive 4 an extraordinary live double album. "This double-disc live document, The Deceptive 4, traces the evolution of both Berne's writing for Snakeoil and the way the band interprets his compositions onstage ­- from the group's nascent beginnings to not long before the recording of its most recent studio release, and first for Intakt, The Fantastic Mrs. 10 (Intakt CD 340).

Disc 1 presents a Snakeoil concert recorded in 2017 within the studio-like acoustics of Firehouse 12 in New Haven, Connecticut. Disc 2 combines music from the foursome's second and third shows ever, before Berne had even settled on a firm name for the band. The first three tracks on the second disc were recorded in 2010 at the intimate I Beam space in Brooklyn, New York, with the fourth track - an homage to Berne's key mentor, saxophonist-composer Julius Hemphill - taped in 2009 at the theater Roulette, also in Brooklyn.

The quartet music captured on The Deceptive 4 flows from sinuous lyricism to expressionistic fierceness and back again like sonic quick­silver, the players utterly attuned to each other and the questing, even head-spinning dynamism of the material' writes Bradley Bambarger in the liner notes."-Intakt



"Alto saxophonist Tim Berne has given his various ensembles some cool names over the years. There was Big Satan, Bloodcount, Science Friction, Hard Cell. Then, in 2012, on his first recording for ECM Records, he introduced his group (and the album) Snakeoil. The band has become, since then, his main-though certainly not his only-means of artistic expression, with recordings like Shadow Man (ECM, 2013), You've Been Watching Me (ECM, 2015), The Incidentals (ECM, 2017) and The Fantastic Mrs. 10 (Intakt Records, 2020).

Berne has sometimes invited guitarists into this mix (Marc Ducret, Ryan Ferreira), but The Deceptive 4-Live is a double-disc live set featuring the band's core quartet-Berne on alto sax, Matt Mitchell in the piano chair, Oscar Noriega playing clarinet and bass clarinet, and Ches Smith on drums and percussion. The sound of Snakeoil, since its inception, has been consistent, and in fact, the second disc here takes us back to that beginning. It was recorded in 2009 and 2010-before their first proper album release, before, in fact, the tag Snakeoil had been dreamed up and applied.

Consistency? "Snakeoil," Berne says "goes for blood every time we hit the stage...there has never been any holding back for this band." That sums it up nicely.

Rhythmic intensity and balls-to-the-wall melodic fury either reign or they retreat to and lurk in some dark corner during periodic segments of comparative reverie when someone lays out and two or three instruments make up the mix. But the storm always regathers, swirls into new maelstroms, beginning with the 2017 recorded "Perception," disc one's eighteen minute stealth opening, with Noriega's clarinet slinking through the shadows in the opening moments. A period of relative gentility ensues, instruments orbiting an empty center of gravity-a black hole, perhaps-that eventually pulls them into a raging pre-galactic conglomeration, Berne wailing for all he's worth. And the concept remains the same straight through to "Hemphill," disc two's 2009 recorded closer, with its long, rubbery melodic lines, wax and wane intensity and rubato improvisations all around.

Spin 2020's earlier Snakeoil outing, The Fantastic Mrs. 10, for proof that Tim Berne and his Snakeoil haven't mellowed out over the years. Listen to The Deceptive 4-Live and find out they didn't start out that way either."-Dan Mcclenaghan, All About Jazz


Get additional information at All About Jazz

Artist Biographies

"Tim Berne (born 1954) is an American jazz saxophonist and composer.

Described by critic Thom Jurek as commanding "considerable power as a composer and ... frighteningly deft ability as a soloist", Berne has composed and performed prolifically since the 1980s. His mainstream success has been limited Ð Berne recorded two albums for Columbia Records Ð but he has released a significant body of work over the decades spanning dozens of critically acclaimed recordings.

Though Berne was a music fan, he had no interest in playing a musical instrument until he was in college, when he purchased an alto saxophone. He was more interested in rhythm and blues music Ð Stax records releases and Aretha Franklin, especially Ð until he heard Julius Hemphill's 1972 recording Dogon A.D.

Hemphill was known for his integration of soul music and funk with free jazz. Berne moved to New York City in 1974. There Berne took lessons from Hemphill, and later recorded with him.

In 1979, Berne founded Empire Records to release his own recordings. He recorded Fulton Street Maul and Sanctified Dreams for Columbia Records, which generated some discussion and controversy, due in part to the fact that Berne's music had little in common with the neo-tradionalist hard bop performers prominent in the mid-1980s. Some regarded Berne's music as uncommercial. In the late 1990s Berne founded Screwgun Records, which has released his own recordings, as well as others' music.

Beyond his recordings as a bandleader, Berne has recorded and/or performed with guitarist Bill Frisell, avant-garde composer/sax player John Zorn, violinist Mat Maneri, guitarist David Torn, cellist Hank Roberts, trumpet player Herb Robertson, the ARTE Quartett and as a member of the cooperative trio Miniature.

Recent years have found Berne performing in several different groups with drummers Tom Rainey and Gerald Cleaver, keyboardist Craig Taborn, bassists Michael Formanek and Drew Gress, guitarists Marc Ducret and David Torn, and reeds player Chris Speed.

He is one-third of the group BBC (Berne/Black/Cline) along with drummer Jim Black and Nels Cline of Wilco. The group released a critically acclaimed album called The Veil in 2011.

Berne's complex, multi-section compositions are often quite lengthy; twenty- to thirty-minute pieces are not unusual. One critic wrote that Berne's long songs "don't grow tiresome. The musicians are brilliantly creative and experienced enough not to get lost in all the room provided by these large time frames." "

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

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

"Matt Mitchell is a pianist and composer interested in the intersections of various strains of acoustic, electric, composed, and improvised new music. He currently composes for and leads several ensembles featuring many of the current foremost musicians and improvisers, including Tim Berne, Kim Cass, Caroline Davis, Kate Gentile, Ben Gerstein, Sylvaine Hélary, Jon Irabagon, Travis Laplante, Ava Mendoza, Miles Okazaki, Ches Smith, Chris Speed, Tyshawn Sorey, Chris Tordini, Anna Webber, Dan Weiss, and Katie Young.

He is an anchor member of several significant creative music ensembles which integrate composed and improvised music, including Tim Berne's Snakeoil, the Dave Douglas Quintet, John Hollenbeck's Large Ensemble, Rudresh Mahanthappa's Bird Calls, Jonathan Finlayson's Sicilian Defense, Dan Weiss's Large Ensemble, Steve Coleman's Natal Eclipse, the Darius Jones Quartet, Kate Gentile's Mannequins, Mario Pavone's Blue Dialect Trio, Anna Webber's Simple Trio, Ches Smith's We All Break, Michael Attias' Spun Tree, Ohad Talmor's Grand Ensemble, and Quinsin Nachoff's Flux. He is also among the core performers of John Zorn's Bagatelles.

Musicians with whom he performs and has performed include Jon Irabagon, Chris Lightcap's Bigmouth, John Hollenbeck's Claudia Quintet + 1, JD Allen, Rudresh Mahanthappa and Bunky Green's Apex, Rez Abbasi's Invocation, Lee Konitz, Kenny Wheeler, Ralph Alessi's Baida Quartet, Dave King's Indelicate duo, Amir ElSaffar, Marc Ducret, David Torn, Vernon Reid, Clarence Penn and Penn Station, Linda Oh, Rudy Royston, Allison Miller, Donny McCaslin, Brad Shepik, and Darcy James Argue's Secret Society.

He has taught extensively with the Brooklyn-based School for Improvisational Music, as well as at the New School, NYU, and the Siena Jazz Workshop. He is also a 2015 receipient of a Doris Duke Impact Award and a 2012 recipient of a Pew Fellowship from the Pew Center for Arts and Heritage."

-Matt Mitchell Website (http://www.mattmitchell.us/bio/)
3/13/2024

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

"Multi-instrumentalist and composer, Oscar lives in Brooklyn since 1992.

He has worked with Lee Konitz, Anthony Braxton, Gerry Hemingway, Dewey Redman and Paul Motion.

He is currently performing with Tim Berne's Snakeoil, Endangered Blood (Chris Speed, Jim Black, Trevor Dunn) and colead with Jacob Garchik, the Mexico-inspired Banda De Los Muertos.

He plays alto saxophone, clarinet, bass clarinet and drums."

-Oscar Noriega Website (http://www.oscarnoriega.com/contact/)
3/13/2024

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

"Born in San Diego, CA and raised in Sacramento, Ches Smith came up in a scene of punks and metal musicians who were listening to and experimenting with jazz and free improvisation. He studied philosophy at the University of Oregon before relocating to the San Francisco Bay area in 1995. After a few years of playing with obscure bands and intensive study with drummer / educator Peter Magadini, he enrolled in the graduate program at Mills College in Oakland at the suggestion of percussionist William Winant. There he studied percussion, improvisation, and composition with Winant, Fred Frith, Pauline Oliveros and Alvin Curran. One of Winant's first "assignments" for Ches was to sub in his touring gig at the time, Mr. Bungle (here he met bassist / composer Trevor Dunn who would later hire him for the second incarnation of his Trio-Convulsant). During his time at Mills, Ches co-founded two bands: Theory of Ruin (with Fudgetunnel / Nailbomb frontman Alex Newport), and Good for Cows (w/ Nels Cline Singers' Devin Hoff). He currently performs and records with Xiu Xiu, and Secret Chiefs 3. He has also performed with Ben Goldberg, Annie Gosfield, Wadada Leo Smith, John Tchicai, Fred Frith, and Trevor Dunn. In addition to Ceramic Dog, he also leads his two of his own projects, Congs for Brums and These Arches. He currently spends his time between Los Angeles, San Francisco and Brooklyn."

-Ches Smith Website (http://www.chessmith.com/)
3/13/2024

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


Track Listing:



CD1



1. Perception 18:34

2. Moornoats 16:36

3. Seven 10:49

4. Deception 16:32

CD2



1. OCDC 16:54

2. Spare / Citta 19:52

3. Scanners 6:26

4. Hemphill 21:25

Related Categories of Interest:


Improvised Music
Jazz
Free Improvisation
Quartet Recordings
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