The Squid's Ear Magazine


Rainey, Tom Trio (w/ Laubrock / Halvorson): Combobulated (Intakt)

Implying the antithesis of confusion, NY drummer Tom Rainey's trio brings together close cohorts and family--Ingrid Laubrock on saxophone and Mary Halvorson on guitar--for an album recorded close to home, in Connecticut's Firehouse 12 studio, where they record the large title track and five shorter-form examples of their diverse and intimate approaches to collective improvisation.
 

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product information:

Personnel:



Tom Rainey-drums

Mary Halvorson-guitar

Ingrid Laubrock-saxophone


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UPC: 7640120193164

Label: Intakt
Catalog ID: ITK316.2
Squidco Product Code: 26988

Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 2019
Country: Switzerland
Packaging: Jewel Case
Recorded live at Firehouse 12... on September 15th, 2017, by Greg DiCrosta.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"In his trio, Tom Rainey - one of the busiest drummers on the New York scene - has united with two of his closest musical allies. Ingrid Laubrock, the saxophonist extraordinaire who left England for the USA some years ago, causing quite a stir with her own band projects as well as in groups from Anthony Braxton to Mike Reed. Plus Mary Halvorson who in recent years has earned herself a superb reputation as one of the most interesting guitarists in contemporary Jazz and has worked in projects with musicians ranging from John Zorn to Yo La Tengo, as well as with her own groups. Both Laubrock and Halvorson who are also active composers took first places in the DownBeat 2018 Int'l Critics Poll. With these outright individualists Rainey founded his trio in 2009 which now celebrates its tenth anniversary. The album was recorded live in the Firehouse 12 in New Haven, Connecticut, in front of an audience, neither renouncing studio quality nor the aura of an audience. David Torn, whom Tom Rainey has known for a long time as a musician and studio specialist, took over the post-production. With Combobulated Rainey takes another giant step into the future."-Intakt



"Married since 2010 and musical partners for years prior, Tom Rainey and Ingrid Laubrock are family. That degree of closeness and compatibility steers their various projects together from an ongoing duo concern to various ensembles. Guitarist Mary Halvorson has collaborated with both drummer and saxophonist regularly for much of that time, forming the third point in the improvisational triangle that is Rainey's working trio and evincing fluency in a shared language of improvisation that could be construed as familial given how well the three gel in compound. Combobulated conveys the tenacity and versatility of these trifold musical bonds in the most emblematic context possible: a single set of live music captured at the group's home turf of Firehouse 12 from the fall of 2017.

At core, collective improvisation relies on split-second communication; cues conveyed through gesture, glance and instrumental integration with ego ideally sublimated in service of sui generis application of agreed-upon aural ingredients. The performance's title piece, which scrapes the underside of nineteen minutes, is a grand example of these techniques in practice. Rainey's sticks rain over his kit. Halvorson's plectrum scrapes and careens across her Guild hollow body's strings, loosing a torrent of distortion-dipped brambles. Laubrock's tenor delivers a near-continuous stream of burnished phrases. The deluge continues for nearly six-minutes before a sudden dispersal leaves just tenor in isolation, laced by the slightest of room echo. Another interlude features Rainey, rolling across his cymbals and rims at a rapid-clip, soon joined by Halvorson cloaked in a roiling cloud of texture-rich effects that approximate a phalanx of disorienting air raid sirens. The three players exit as they entered at full, ears-abrading steam.

Five additional pieces are all approximately equal in length and offer apertures into the trio's designs with shorter-form structures. "Point Reyes" joins Rainey's malleted surfaces with the aqueous sonorities of Halvorson's pedal-treated washes and Laubrock's whale song tenor. "Fact" is a mash-up of capricious guitar pyrotechnics with Rainey's raw force drumming that finds Laubrock mining the edges of her colleague's more aggressive cross-purposes like a flustered officiant frantically refereeing a boxing match. Across each encounter, a refreshing unpredictability reigns with spontaneous course corrections always yielding fresh terrain rather than escape-canceling cul de sacs. Rainey, Halvorson and Laubrock are well past the point of allowing audience or other exterior expectations dictate their direction and have instead reached that place of communal confidence where the journey is reward. It's an empowering place to be and one that ensures that no two performances will ever overlap with any certainty, Combobulated, indeed."-Derek Taylor, Dusted Magazine


Get additional information at Dusted Magazine

Artist Biographies

"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.

"One of improvised music's most in-demand guitarists, Mary Halvorson has been active in New York since 2002, following jazz studies at Wesleyan University and the New School. Critics have called her "a singular talent" (Lloyd Sachs, JazzTimes), "NYC's least-predictable improviser" (Howard Mandel, City Arts), "one of the most exciting and original guitarists in jazz-or otherwise" (Steve Dollar, Wall Street Journal), and "one of today's most formidable bandleaders" (Francis Davis, Village Voice). The Philadelphia City Paper's Shaun Brady adds, "Halvorson has been steadily reshaping the sound of jazz guitar in recent years with her elastic, sometimes-fluid, sometimes-shredding, wholly unique style."

After three years of study with visionary composer and saxophonist Anthony Braxton, Ms. Halvorson became an active member of several of his bands, including his trio, septet and 12+1tet. To date, she appears on six of Mr. Braxton's recordings. Ms. Halvorson has also performed alongside iconic guitarist Marc Ribot, in his bands Sun Ship and The Young Philadelphians, and with the bassist Trevor Dunn in his Trio-Convulsant. Over the past decade she has worked with such diverse bandleaders as Tim Berne, Taylor Ho Bynum, Tomas Fujiwara, Ingrid Laubrock, Myra Melford, Jason Moran, Joe Morris, Tom Rainey and Mike Reed.

As a bandleader and composer, one of Ms. Halvorson's primary outlets is her longstanding trio, featuring bassist John Hébert and drummer Ches Smith. Since their 2008 debut album, Dragon's Head, the band has been recognized as a rising star jazz band by Downbeat Magazine for five consecutive years. Ms. Halvorson's quintet, which adds trumpeter Jonathan Finlayson and alto saxophonist Jon Irabagon to the trio, has released two critically acclaimed albums on the Firehouse 12 label: Saturn Sings and Bending Bridges. Most recently she has added two additional band members-tenor saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock and trombonist Jacob Garchik-to form a septet, featured on her 2013 release Illusionary Sea. Ms. Halvorson also co-leads a longstanding chamber-jazz duo with violist Jessica Pavone, the avant-rock band People and the collective ensembles Thumbscrew and Secret Keeper."

-Mary Halvorson Website (http://www.maryhalvorson.com/bio/)
3/13/2024

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

"Originally from Germany, Ingrid Laubrock resides in Brooklyn, NY. Between 1989 and 2009 she was active as a saxophonist and composer in London/UK. She performed and/or recorded with: Anthony Braxton, Dave Douglas, Kenny Wheeler, Jason Moran, Tim Berne, William Parker, Tom Rainey, Mary Halvorson, Kris Davis, Tyshawn Sorey, Craig Taborn, Luc Ex, Django Bates' Human Chain, The Continuum Ensemble and many others.

Ingrid's current projects as a leader are Anti-House, Sleepthief, Ingrid Laubrock Orchestra, Ingrid Laubrock Sextet and Ubatuba. Collaborations include LARK,Haste,Paradoxical Frog and Ingrid Laubrock/Tom Rainey Duo.She is a member of Anthony Braxton's Falling River Music Quartet, Nonet and 12+1tet, Tom Rainey Trio and Obbligato, Andrew Drury's Content Provider, Mary Halvorson Septet, Kris' Davis Quintet, Nate Wooley's Battle Pieces and Luc Ex' Assemblée. Ingrid was one of the featured soloists in Anthony Braxton's opera Trillium J.

Awards include the BBC Jazz Award for Innovation in 2004, a Fellowship in Jazz Composition by the Arts Foundation in 2006, the 2009 SWR German Radio Jazz Prize and the 2014 German Record Critics Quarterly Award. Commissions include Jammy Dodgers for jazz quintet and dancers (2006), Nonet music for Cheltenham Jazz Festival 2007, SWR New Jazz Meeting 2011 and "Vogelfrei", a piece for chamber orchestra (ACO/Tricentric Foundation). She won Rising Star/soprano saxophone in the 2015 in the 'Downbeat Annual Critics Poll and won the 'El Intruso Critics Poll for tenor saxophone in 2013. Ingrid was Improviser in Residence 2012 in the German city Moers. The post is created to introduce creative music into the city throughout the year. As part of this she led a regular improvisation ensemble and taught sound workshops in elementary schools. Other teaching experiences include improvisation workshops at Towson University, Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Baruch College, University of Michigan, University of Newcastle and many others."

-Ingrid Laubrock Website (http://ingridlaubrock.com/about.html)
3/13/2024

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


Track Listing:



1. Combobulated 18:42

2. Point Reyes 5:56

3. Fact 7:52

4. Isn't Mine 7:08

5. Splays Itself 7:03

6. Tom Road 6:25

Related Categories of Interest:


Intakt
Improvised Music
Jazz
Free Improvisation
NY Downtown & Metropolitan Jazz/Improv
Trio Recordings
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