Review: Fire Room (Ken Vandermark/ Paal Nilssen-Love/ Lasse Marhaug)

Paal Nilssen-Love. Vortex November 2011
Drawing by Geoff Winston. All Rights Reserved

Fire Room (Ken Vandermark/ Paal Nilssen-Love/ Lasse Marhaug)
(Vortex, 23 November 2011; night two of 2-day residency; review and drawings by Geoff Winston)

In Fire Room there is a meshing of continents and blurring of genres. European jazz and punk tendencies, Chicago jazz, free jazz, Norwegian noise and death metal. With the amalgam of reeds (Ken Vandermark), drums (Paal Nilssen-Love) and electronics (Lasse Marhaug) it was interesting to see what Marhaug could bring to the more familiar team of Vandermark and Nilssen-Love, who have worked together and toured in various combinations since 2002 - from duets to the Chicago Tentet - always marked by their uncompromising energy and daunting technical proficiency. Nilssen-Love had first performed with fellow Norwegian Marhaug in 2003, and they have since recorded two albums as a duo.

The early percussive onslaught hardly eased off as Nilssen-Love grimaced with concentration to release a succession of pummeling fusillades which even Vandermark, with a slightly underpowered mix, had to work hard with at times to make himself fully audible. Marhaug was always present, either riding alongside the acoustic instruments, intervening with glitches, thrumming and interference or supplying more assertive echoes and gutteral noise. Sounds from the special effects portfolio evoked film animations and sci-fi landscapes, getting uncomfortably close to the literal and highlighting some limitations to the vocabulary.

Nilssen-Love defined the narrative, sticks held low, pedals pounding in a funky chowder of rolls which pushed Vandermark to soulful sax 'in extremis' and circular breathing to maintain the momentum. To a backdrop of electronic trembling and bubbling, he crashed metal as though dustbin lids, then scraped the drumstick on cymbals with the squeals of railway shunting. A rare, sampled repeat tone set the scene for Vandermark's starchy clarinet, skidding over the high register to a spacious background of desert thunder. As he set up honking sax rhythms, Nilssen-Love let rip on the hi-hat and Marhaug wheeled in dense washes to complete the barrage.

Ken Vandermark on clarinet. Vortex November 2011
Drawing by Geoff Winston. All Rights Reserved

There were quieter moments amongst the rambunctious attacks - Marhaug letting a dangling key hit an uncoiled spring, Nilssen-Love tapping a temple bell or scraping a hand-held cymbal on the larger cymbals, and Vandermark holding a single haunting note on clarinet.

The combined drone of clarinet and scratches set the scene for the final full-on assault of booming electronics, raucous sax and clattering, crashing percussion. This is a trio which, to the last, fends off all chances of slipping in to the comfort zone.

Vortex Jazz

Review: Lean Left

Lean Left
* Image copyright Geoffrey Winston. All Rights Reserved.

Lean Left
(Café Oto, Sunday 11 September 2011 - night 1 of 2 night residency. Review and drawings by Geoff Winston.)

Lean Left are a lethal combination of radical commitment, sonic intensity and breathtaking fluency from four musicians who, between them, have rarely strayed from the outermost borders of jazz and punk.

We knew we were in for a tough night when guitarist Terrie Hessels ominously took to the stage with a screwdriver gripped firmly in his jaws. Hessels and Andy Moor, the guitarists from punk vanguard band The Ex, have honed to perfection their distinctive approaches to the guitar, and provided a driving, pneumatic wall of sound from the left and right flanks of Café Oto's stage. Hessels applied screwdriver and drumstick to the pickups, strings and body of his Mad Max-battered brown customised guitar, used his fingers instead of the traditional bottleneck in slide guitar passages, to leave a trail of continual invention in his wake. Moor, equally energetic, was a constantly vibrating body of energy, red T-shirt, red guitar body, mixing a relentless chordal onslaught with brief acoustic touches.

Ken Vandermark set off at a blistering, supercharged pace, coaxing an astounding expressive range from his tenor, recalling his duets with Peter Brötzmann earlier in the year, and later used the clarinet to carve out sputtering patterns while Hessel held his guitar head to the floor, like a geiger counter, sending metallic vibrations through the instrument. Paul Nilssen-Love's complex brew of articulated post-punk-jazz percussion consistently maintained the rhythmic backbone with ferocious technical aplomb.

The relentless flow was reinforced as they each bounced ideas off each other with disarmingly telegraphic reflexes. There was genuine sense of enjoyment as they perhaps surpassed their own demanding standards, characterised by a parity and unity in both intensity and invention. It felt like being right at the working coal face - only the coal dust was missing. Amidst the industrial tension riffs surfaced and evaporated. The echoing bells and buoys of Hendrix's '1983 ... a Merman I should turn to be' were evoked in an abstract passage from Nilssen-Love at the end of the first set, giving an almost surreal, nautical twist to the proceedings.

Lean Left * Image copyright Geoffrey Winston. All Rights Reserved.

For the second set they were joined by master saxophonist Ab Baars, whose searing, whistling runs saw the ever-generous Vandermark take a back seat to allow Baars the freedom to build his own carefully wrought structures. Their ensuing high octane tenor duet was followed by a brief solo spot where Baars's dexterity and nuanced playing was given that bit of extra breathing space, before the ensemble built up an emphatic final crescendo.

The density, clarity and balance maintained throughout the two sets was a breathtaking reminder that this stormy, industrial territory is where many of the most pressing questions are asked of the structure and content of jazz today.

Ken Vandermark (tenor saxophone and clarinet)
Paal Nilssen-Love (percussion)
Terrie Hessels (guitar)
Andy Moor (guitar)
Guest: Ab Baars (tenor saxophone)
www.cafeoto.co.uk

Review: Peter Brötzmann Chicago Tentet

Peter Brötzmann Chicago Tentet
(Café Oto, 18th and 20th April 2011; nights 1 and 3 of the Tentet's three-day Residency. Review and drawings by Geoff Winston* .)

UPDATES:

-Ten drawings of the residency are HERE.

-Jazz on 3 will feature a recording on Monday May 2nd.

There is arguably no other large improvising jazz ensemble to match the Brötzmann Chicago Tentet for sheer firepower, wealth of musicianship, flair and inspiration. Bound together by shared musical imperatives, the Tentet took root in Chicago in 1997, initially as an octet, and after all these years have made it to London for the first time - and what a treat it was!

The two concerts I saw were successions of seamlessly changing musical combinations - solos, duets, trios ... mass band blasts - it was all there! Each night brimmed with surprises. Per Åke Holmander's solo tuba set on night 1 was muffled growls, breathy sonority and piercing interjections (he also played the rarely seen cimbasso with the large group). Kent Kessler's dextrous, soft-toned bass solo spot on night 3 with its classical undertone was in sharp contrast to the preceding reed trio which had Brötzmann on alto in hot pursuit of Ken Vandermark on clarinet, all over the registers of their instruments, to be joined by Mats Gustafsson in blazing, honking homage to 'Machine Gun'.




Joe McPhee's presence (drawing above) was pivotal in this stellar line-up; like Brötzmann, exemplary in his contribution of poise and pacing to the maelstrom, just when it was needed, he was an anchor in the perpetual flux that is the essence of the Tentet, and perhaps its unsung hero.

The greatest revelation was the lightning speed with which the terrain changed, so adept and intuitive were the powers and skills of each player in maintaining this state of flowing elision. Charting the changes in flow of the musical combinations would have yielded a complex diagram, indeed. Dual trombones, dual drums, pairs of saxes, the bass and cello, clarinet duets, all underscored the importance of the duo, and echoed the sentiment of Ornette's ‘Free Jazz’ double quartet of 1960.

Whether it was a concerted blasting ramp up the register by the brass, a near cacophonous interlude sounding like 'The Rite of Spring' gone mad, or the perfect accord of the two-man percussive force on either side of the stage, the impact was immediate and one could only marvel at the skill with which the balance was sustained throughout their lengthy sets. Brötzmann's Hawkins-like tone broke in to harsher, poignant middle eastern phrasing in a duet with Zerang, whose hollow beats brought a spacious feel to the texture. Lonberg-Holm added an electronic dimension to his cello input, and Brötzmann's feisty duel on tenor with Johannes Andreas Bauer's trombone at the close, preceded the final crescendo which unleashed the full force of the Tentet's wall of brass.

The key to the functioning of this group is, explained Brötzmann (in the earlier interview with Jez Nelson for BBC's Jazz on 3, on night 3), "to give everybody responsibility", and combined with the enthusiasm, respect and sheer enjoyment that each brought to the party, the sum of the parts was often close to overwhelming.

The good news is that Brötzmann hopes to bring the Tentet back, having enjoyed the three nights at Café Oto so much! It just needs another sponsor with the same vision as the Goethe-Institut.

Personnel:

Peter Brötzmann (Reeds)
Joe McPhee (Pocket Trumpet/Reeds)
Mats Gustafsson (Reeds)
Ken Vandermark (Reeds)
Paal Nilssen-Love (Drums/Percussion)
Fred Lonberg-Holm (Cello)
Per Åke Holmlander (Tuba)
Johannes Andreas Bauer (Trombone)
Michael Zerang (Drums/Percussion)
Kent Kessler (Bass)
Jeb Bishop (Trombone)

*Drawings copyright Geoffrey Winston 2011. All Rights Reserved

The Tentet’s Residency was supported by the Goethe-Institut.