The Squid's Ear
Writing about improvised, contemporary, experimental and unusual music,
following the activities of Squidco...
  •  •  •     Join Our Mailing List!



The Squid's Ear




Heard In

Reviews of artist releases:
cd's, books, magazines, &c.


  Paul Dunmall / Mark Sanders 
  Unity
  (577 Records) 


  
   review by Marc Medwin
  2022-01-05
Paul Dunmall / Mark Sanders: Unity (577 Records)

One of the very special periods in the music we're still fumblingly calling "Free Jazz" involves its first large-scale flowering, that fertile stretch between 1955 and 1962, or thereabouts. To suggest that the music transitioned from metric to non-metric, or tonal to its supposed opposite, is to impose a partially false duality on many more complex manifestations. Both Paul Dunmall and Mark Sanders live at the most fruitful point of those continua and have done so for many years. Unity, their first duo album, could not have been given a more apt title for those very reasons.

The lovely opening moments on "The Quiet Mind" indicate precisely the erasure of those boundaries which, frankly, never really existed in the first place. Sanders is playing time, swing-time in fact, but it's extraordinarily subtle, just sneaking out through his brushes! The bell-like tone inaugurating the track lends an air of mystery to what is really grounded, though only just, in earth and groove. When he brings other skins and metals into the equation, the new rhythm grows organically out of the first, like the pivot to a perfect modulation. Dunmall's minor-modal tenor comes in at a whisper, but immediately and repeatedly its microtonal inflections point toward other variables, like the blues, which actually foregrounds itself only minutes later. The sounds of the instruments themselves bespeak multiple historical points, suggesting something conjoining romantic ballad and an anticipatory prelude to the roiling "New Thing" explorations of which much of the disc is comprised.

Maybe it's all about implication, an art of which both musicians are masters. Even to suggest that Sanders slides in and out of time is to impose false constructs on what is clearly a playing style built on subtlety. Hear his melodic and polyrhythmic interplay on the duo's homage to Henry Grimes, one of those pioneering masters so integral to the early 1960s music and its various iterations. I well remember Dunmall and Andrew Cyrille performing with Grimes during a Vision Festival, an astonishing concert all around, and this is a more than fitting tribute. Listen at around 2:45 to hear the arpeggios in motivic development that have been a mainstay of Dunmall's aesthetic for more than four decades. His approach to tonality is innovative, inclusive and expertly delineated, possibly an inheritance from Coltrane or Sam Rivers but which he makes his own at those points where every phrase and line converge. Here, he is playing C-melody saxophone, but his alto and usual tenor inhabit similar territory. His sound on alto is as colorful, as timbrally rich, as the kit Sanders has assembled for the occasion. The have fashioned a duo album of stunning power, extraordinary depth and, above all, a beauty equaling or surpassing anything else in their respective discographies.







Comments and Feedback:



More Recent Reviews, Articles, and Interviews @ The Squid's Ear...


The Squid's Ear presents
reviews about releases
sold at Squidco.com
written by
independent writers.

Squidco

Recent Selections @ Squidco:


Derek Bailey/
John Stevens:
The Duke of
Wellington
(Confront)



Paul Dunmall:
Away With
Troubles And Anxieties!
(Discus)



Shifa (
Musson/
Thomas/
Sanders):
Ecliptic
(Discus)



Natsuki Tamura/
Satoko Fujii:
Ki
(Libra)



Borah Bergman/
Anthony Braxton/
Peter Brotzmann:
Eight By Three
(Mixtery)



Hedvig Mollestad Trio:
Bees In
The Bonnet
(Rune Grammofon)



Acid Mothers Temple &
The Melting Paraiso
UFO:
Black Mountain
ide
(Rolling Heads)



Evan Parker/
Bill Nace:
Branches (
Live at Cafe OTO)[VINYL]
(Open Mouth)



Alexander Hawkins/
Taylor Ho Bynum:
A Near Permanent State
Of Wonder
(RogueArt)



Joseph Holbrooke (
w/ Derek Bailey/
Gavin Bryars/
Tony Oxley):
Last Live 2001 -
In Memoriam
Derek Bailey
And
Tony Oxley
[2 CDs]
(Tzadik)



Zeena Parkins:
Modesty Of
The Magic Thing
(Tzadik)



Dave Douglas (
Douglas/
Ridout/
Adewumi/
Brennan/
Pass/
Royston):
Alloy
(Greenleaf Music)



Ivo Pereleman/
Nate Wooley/
Matt Moran/
Mark Helias/
Tom Rainey:
A Modicum
Of the Blues
(Fundacja Sluchaj!)



Angles 11:
Tell Them
It's The Sound Of Freedom
(Fundacja Sluchaj!)



Sifter (
w/ Lisa Mezzacappa):
Flake/
Fracture
(Queen Bee Records)



Jean-Marc Foussat:
Abbatage
(Fou Records)



Chester Hawkins:
Apsis
(Intangible Arts)



Karl Evangelista's Apura +
Andrew Cyrille:
Bukas
(577 Records)



Frode Gjerstad/
Alexander von Schlippenbach/
Dag Magnus Narvesen:
Seven Tracks
(Relative Pitch)



Kaze (
Fujii/
Tamura/
Orins/
Pruvost) with/ Koichi Makigami:
Shishiodoshi
(Circum-Libra)







Squidco
Click here to
advertise with
The Squid's Ear






The Squid's Ear pays its writers.
Interested in becoming a reviewer?




The Squid's Ear is the companion magazine to the online music shop Squidco !


  Copyright © Squidco. All rights reserved. Trademarks. (9862)