Blending the acoustic aspects of his regularly performing trio with unusual electronics, trombonist Michael Dessen's NY trio with bassist Christopher Tordini and drummer Dan Weiss carve out a unique territory that balances lyrical, aggressive, and swinging aspects of free jazz with other-worldly interactions, in an album honoring late saxophonist Yusef Lateef.
Format: CD Condition: New Released: 2018 Country: Portugal Packaging: Cardboard Gatefold Recorded at Systems Two in Brooklyn on June 6, 2016, by Max Ross.
"Praised as a "musician for this moment" (Downbeat) for his imaginative work with music technology, trombonist Michael Dessen culminates over a decade with his electro-acoustic trio in this fourth Clean Feed release, an homage to the late Yusef Lateef. After studying with Lateef for several years and making his debut as an improviser on one of Lateef's albums in 1996, Dessen has since carved his own individual path through jazz and contemporary music worlds, acclaimed both for his "black belt" trombone playing (praise from close collaborator Mark Dresser) as well as for his unique work as a composer-bandleader that "straddles the line between the avant garde and the accessible better than most" (All About Jazz).
Here Dessen honors Lateef's memory with Somewhere In The Upstream, a longform "scorestream" in which notations are displayed on screens for the improvisers to interpret, shifting unpredictably for each performance. Fluidly melding intricate composition, radically open group improvisation and otherworldly live electronic soundworlds, the music of the Michael Dessen Trio has been recognized with major awards and commissions from Chamber Music America, the Fromm Foundation, and New Music USA. This album distills the core qualities that critics have praised in the band's music over their previous three releases: Compositional structures deeply shape the music but at the same time are always elusive, abstracted by the band in such a way that the focus remains on the organically unfolding interactions among the improvisers and the incredibly wide-ranging expressive dynamics of an entire set.
Dessen wrote this music specifically for his longstanding trio members, virtuoso improvisers Chris Tordini (bass) and Dan Weiss (drums), and the album was recorded in a single take to capture the immersive feel and powerful chemistry that the band is known for in their live performances. Tordini deftly grounds the music's kaleidoscopic polyrhythms and constantly surprises the listener with endless gradient explorations of sound, and Weiss similarly combines a broad timbral palette with his renowned rhythmic sensibilities. Dessen completes the trio with his own playing on both trombone and computer, using live processing and sampling in ways that complement but never overwhelm the band's acoustic foundation.
Combining the band's live aesthetic with extraordinary recording quality and a heightened attention to sonic detail that will reward repeated listening, Somewhere In The Upstream is a singular compositional achievement by one of the truly original bands of our time."-Clean Feed
"I started this trio in 2003 to create music that blends intricate composition, open improvisation and live electronics. I compose the music and perform on trombone and computer, joined by my incredible collaborators Christopher Tordini (bass) and Dan Weiss (drums).
This band is all about the live concert: I compose many acoustic and electronic materials, but we bring them to life in a highly open way, making each performance unique. "-Michael Dessen
"Yusef Abdul Lateef (born William Emanuel Huddleston; October 9, 1920 - December 23, 2013) was an American jazz multi-instrumentalist, composer and prominent figure among the Ahmadiyya Community in America, in 1950.
Although Lateef's main instruments were the tenor saxophone and flute, he also played oboe and bassoon, both rare in jazz, and also used a number of non-western instruments such as the bamboo flute, shanai, shofar, xun, arghul and koto. He is known for having been an innovator in the blending of jazz with "Eastern" music. Peter Keepnews, in his New York Times obituary of Lateef, wrote that the musician "played world music before world music had a name."
Lateef wrote and published a number of books including two novellas entitled A Night in the Garden of Love and Another Avenue, the short story collections Spheres and Rain Shapes, also his autobiography, The Gentle Giant, written in collaboration with Herb Boyd.[3] Along with his record label YAL Records, Lateef owned Fana Music, a music publishing company. Lateef published his own work through Fana, which includes Yusef Lateef's Flute Book of the Blues and many of his own orchestral compositions."-Wikipedia