Polyorchard founder and double bassist David Menestres leads the quartet of Jeb Bishop on trombone, Shawn Galvin on percussion, and Laurent Estoppey on saxophone, using skills drawn from both improvisation and compositional music to present six free dialogs showing intent listening amongst the four as they create complex, interweaving, sophisticated statements; impressive!
Label: Out and Gone Music Catalog ID: OG03 Squidco Product Code: 25326
Format: CASSETTE Condition: New Released: 2017 Country: USA Packaging: Cassette Recorded by David MenestresMastering by Alex Inglizian at ESSRecorded October 6, 2014live at Neptunes Parlour, Raleigh, NC
"Red October is the second official Polyorchard release, recorded only a couple of weeks after the first, Color Theory in Black and White, and so it seems fitting to view both as only snapshots in the life of a protean improvising ensemble. Polyorchard was founded by bassist and composer David Menestres in 2012, and in its lifetime the group has featured around 15 different players. This iteration, captured in performance in 2014, features the first and only meeting between the quartet of Menestres on bass, Jeb Bishop on trombone, Laurent Estoppey on saxophone, and Shawn Galvin on percussion. On the six pieces here, the group displays a bold commitment to the practice, not the genre, of improvisation. The distinction is a subtle but crucial one. Where many free improvisation performances can fall into a predictable dynamic pattern of peaks and valleys, Polyorchard crafts intricate forms with clear but idiosyncratic arcs. Each extempore arrangement is packed with surprise. Just when they seem to be building in intensity and volume, they might cut it off before it boils over, as they do in the middle of "Montana." They also avoid the exploratory feeling-out stage that improvised settings often produce. At the opening of "Seen" Menestres throws down a challenge in the form of a tense, rapid-fire phrase, which in turn sets the tone for the entire piece. Throughout these performances, dialogues quickly emerge within the turbulent flow then just as quickly dissipate and reform somewhere else. "Have" starts as a slow duo between bass and trombone on a melodic theme, but gradually disintegrates into particles of rough-hewn, pointillist sound, only to coalesce for a brief instant in a stomping groove. Even the intense conclusion of "Like" finds Bishop and Estoppey crafting tart melodic phrases around the scabrous interplay of Menestres and Galvin. The group also resists the enormous gravity of the horns-bass-drums format, rejecting all easy solutions to spontaneous group from. There are no drones, no genre/historical references (at least explicitly), and no resorting to high-intensity, free-jazz style blow-outs. This lack of shortcuts makes for a prickly, armored music but also a robust one. Even the more subdued passages, such as as the near-dirges that open "Montana" or close "I Would," burn with a special intensity. Though their interaction might at times echo some earlier group (I hear the volatile, near-vocal dynamics of Charles Mingus' classic Candid quartet in the middle of "Like"), they still retain their own voice, the specturm of improvised traditions deeply internalized. One key to the group's sound is how they reject any hierarchy of instruments. Trombone, sax, bass, drums are, simply put, just devices for sound production, there to create a complex weave of interaction in which the traditional capabilities of the instruments are honored as well as extended. On the conclusion of "Like" the group creates a mix of proto-electronic textures, while on the opening of "To" they turn to vocal timbres and, in Bishop's case, even some slow legato melodies. On the outro of "Montana" they take this even further, emitting all manner of wheezing, hissing and moaning in a secret, sublingual ritual.It should be noted here that Red October contains, in Menestres's own words, "no previously agreed upon material." Since this performance was recorded, Polyorchard has expanded its repertoire to include performances of text scores and compositions for field recordings and improvising ensemble, a move that can only enrich their already extensive improvisational lexicon. Yet Menestres's statement is still somewhat jaw-dropping. After a good two months of visiting and revisiting this record, new aspects emerge on every listen, the band's ability to create spontaneous structure consistently fascinating, and more than a little befuddling."-Matt Wuethrich, Dusted Magazine Get additional information at Dusted