THE SPACE BETWEEN
With Barre Phillips
482 Music
482-1007
One
of the wonderful facets of free improvisation is that, unlike more formal
music, practitioners aren't limited to certain instruments.
Thus
you have this unbridled session of stirring improv performed on shakuhachi
or Japanese bamboo flute; accordion retuned with just intonation; minimalist
piano and string bass. The background of the four musicians couldn't be
more different either. Bay area shakuhachi player Philip Gelb, who brings
a unique Occidental concept to his instrument, is as likely to collaborate
with multi instrumentalist Joe McPhee, or interactive electronics composer
Chris Brown as with koto master, Shoko Hikage. Accordionist Pauline Oliveros
has been composing so-called serious music for 50 years and has a long
history of creating electronic and minimalist works.
Canadian
born, Los Angeles-based Dana Reason works regularly with Oliveros and
Gelb, as well as other explorers such as trombonist George Lewis, and
is most interested in the byproducts of the piano that lie in between
the black and white keys. American bassist Barre Phillips, who recorded
a solo session as long ago as 1968, expatriated permanently to France
around that time. Over the years he literally worked with everyone in
avant jazz, improv and New music from saxophonist Archie Shepp to guitarist
Derek Bailey.
Simultaneously
backdrop and foreground, the effort makes you want to begin again when
the CD finishes. Perhaps it's because the 12 tunes are all instant compositions,
recorded live on the spot by the four. Louder most of the time than one
might figure, considering Oliveros' commitment to deep listening and minimalism,
even the quietest passages feature the sort of aggression one associates
with free jazz, despite any denials towards the music these four would
probably proffer.
Certainly
all have been exposed to jazz, and Phillips has played it for a long time.
Moreover like a bassist functioning in a jazz combo, the vigor of his
long-lined pizzicato forays seems to be the fulcrum on which the compositions
revolve. It's probably him, in fact, who adds the percussion-like underpinning
on some of the tracks, Not that anything swings in a jazz sense, but the
proceedings certainly move along at a powerful clip, lacking those awkward,
prolonged silences that sometimes arrive in more self-conscious new music.
Gelb,
too, is a marvel. If you didn't know his implement of choice was the shakuhachi,
from the evidence here you'd think it was the metal flute, the soprano
saxophone or perhaps both. Capable of high-pitched, ethereal, overblowing
asides and basso tones, he still makes it a point not to stand out from
the ensemble, but to blend with the others.
Banishing
any thought of Lawrence Welk -- or for you veteran jazzbos Art Van Damme
-- from her accordion association, Oliveros appears to have discovered
the perfect musical outlet. Without abandoning its traditional resonance
she can make the squeeze box sound like a very large harmonica or a sideways,
elastic piano.
The only dilemma created by this style, though, is that Reason, the band's
regular keyboardist, finds herself mostly confined to contributing single
notes or the occasional quick run reminiscent of John Tilbury's work with
AMM.
As
a group effort, these 62 minutes plus of creativity pass by like five,
without, it seems, a bum note on disc. Overall, this product of two young
virtuosi and two veteran tonal explorers as a quartet of unconventional
instruments is memorable in its audacity.
--
Ken Waxman
Track
Listing: 1. King Kong Passes Through The Gates Of Shaolin Temple And Contemplates
Life; 2.Natto Breath; 3.After Long Life; 4.The Lonely Halibut; 5. Fantastic
Increments; 6.Penquin; 7.Do We Deserve Dubya?; 8.Incandescent Gesture;
9.David's Sandbox; 10.Candles On The Lake Shore; 11.Several Moments; 12.Surely
It Was
Personnel:
Philip Gelb, shakuhachi; Pauline Oliveros, accordion; Dana Reason, piano;
Barre Phillips, bass