By CHRIS RICH,
Taylor Ho Bynum cuts to a cornet's chase with his declaration of intent, in the liner notes to Apparent Distance, a 2010 New Jazz Works commission grant from Chamber Music America and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation:
Taylor Ho Bynum cuts to a cornet's chase with his declaration of intent, in the liner notes to Apparent Distance, a 2010 New Jazz Works commission grant from Chamber Music America and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation:
"My goal," he writes, "is not just to blur the lines between composition and improvisation (a long-time pursuit), but to try to upend the listeners' expectations in other ways: circular melodies without beginnings or ends, disguised unisons and non- repetitive vamps, transitions that are simultaneously jarring and organic. Most importantly, I want to spotlight the striking individuality and virtuosity of all the players, albeit in a context where the needs of the ensemble reign supreme—a concerto for sextet, if you will."
The best description of how sound is wrung from these instruments might be "thrushing,"' with sound flowing like a Hermit Thrush song.
It makes an aesthetic of blurring—not merely at the philosophical level to which Bynum alludes, but in the very sinews of the work. It's embedded and all the participants rise to the occasion with their applications of it.
It's one of the more exciting and possibly defining features of what this artist cohort aspires to, free to be free as birds, literally. Notation attempts would probably induce migraines and personality disintegration.
"Part I: Shift" is the shortest segment, opening with solo cornet followed by a lung- driven union with alto saxophonist Jim Hobbs and bass trombonist Bill Lowe for the second roughly equal part. It suggests the shadow of a fanfare that a trumpeter swan might castforth. A focused frenzy, redolent of spring peepers on overdrive, also rises. At midpoint, Hobbs and Lowe join in and asymmetric polyphony ensues; a vining twining that converges with a closing unison.
"Part II: Strike" is a different kind of striking. The transition opens with the other end of the ensemble, the plucky element, and in the topsy-turviness of it all, the piece conjures aspects of wind and rain as bassist Ken Filiano makes a punctuating turbine propulsion of this motion.
Guitarist Mary Halvorson covers the gusting as Hobbs handles eddies and wayward wind curls. Both deftly wrest the improbable from their instruments and vie to see which can more readily mimic or reflect the timbral capacities of the other. It's that blurring thing. Meanwhile, drummer Tomas Fujiwara is all manner of rain, from sprinkles to downpours and the crackling of every kind of fire, while Lowe indicates a shift after the ensemble pause with a summoning sort of tuba solo; no one does elephantine quite like Lowe. The elephant invocation has been around for awhile, and Lowe keeps it intrinsic (he has whales covered too). - http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=40839
Guitarist Mary Halvorson covers the gusting as Hobbs handles eddies and wayward wind curls. Both deftly wrest the improbable from their instruments and vie to see which can more readily mimic or reflect the timbral capacities of the other. It's that blurring thing. Meanwhile, drummer Tomas Fujiwara is all manner of rain, from sprinkles to downpours and the crackling of every kind of fire, while Lowe indicates a shift after the ensemble pause with a summoning sort of tuba solo; no one does elephantine quite like Lowe. The elephant invocation has been around for awhile, and Lowe keeps it intrinsic (he has whales covered too). - http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=40839
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