Ken Thomson Turns His Reed Work to Chamber Jazz

Improvisation is a big, if not the biggest, pillar of jazz music. For many, it's what gives the music its unique identity, separating it from pop and the rest. Musicians wax poetic about the experience of playing that way, and I've written extensively about it through the years, particularly applauding those groups that practice free playing in which little if anything is written out or composed ahead of time.

But in recent years I've become more patient with jazz musicians who emphasize the art of crafting great tunes. Nothing is more annoying than listening to a talented but unrehearsed band play a set where the formula strictly adheres to the head/melody—lead solo—secondary solo(s)—back to the head for the conclusion. Obviously, this works for the music's roots as a style refined during jam sessions, but this unswerving formula can get quite tedious when it's applied song after song.

Reedist Ken Thomson is never boring. He's a bouncing, twirling loose cannon when he plays live with the long-running band Gutbucket, which has four albums out and a fifth coming in January. He also is the co-leader of Bang on a Can's postmodern 12-piece marching band Asphalt Orchestra, which plays everything from Mingus to classical avant-gardist Conlon Nancarrow to metal's Meshuggah as it marches, jumps and dances.

Thomson now returns with 'Things Would be Easier If,' a toned-down and thoughtful effort with Slow/Fast (Thomson, trumpeter Russ Johnson, guitarist Nir Felder, bassist Adam Armstrong and drummer Fred Kennedy). Like much of his work, the album is a combination of rock, jazz and modern chamber music, but whereas Asphalt defies easy categorization and Gutbucket is overtly punk jazz, Slow/Fast leans towards composition-heavy chamber jazz.

“The idea was to do five 10-minute songs and to only have improvisation when it was absolutely necessary," Thomson explains. “I was using improvisation to inform the composition, which is different than the standard jazz model where you have your head and you have your vehicle for improvisation. For me, I wanted to have the improvisation be a vehicle for the composition."

The music has a energetic playfulness to it that runs counter to the Thomson's somewhat academic description of the album—most rambunctious is the shredding, odd-metered 'Goddamn You Ice Cream Truck,' which was inspired by the music emanating from a Mister Softee truck that sat outside his Brooklyn, N.Y. apartment.
Complete on: http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/news.php?id=69813