REVIEW
All About Jazz
January 26, 2011
By John Kelman
007
This is one of the more curious shows of the series. Frisell combines
his Scherr/Wollesen trio with Scheinman/Kang/Roberts 858 group, for a
76-minute set drawing mostly from Unspeakable—though only three
of the album's 14 songs are represented; the rest combines of group improvisation,
a lengthy version of "You are My Sunshine" that references classical
composers Gavin Bryars and Aaron Copland. Form meets freedom, as the
familiar theme and changes lead to a middle section where Kang, in particular,
demonstrates a combination of respect and healthy irreverence that explains
why he's been a constant companion for Frisell, dating back to Quartet
(Nonesuch, 1996) and right through to today for the guitarist's most
recent release, Beautiful Dreamers (Savoy Jazz, 2010). The presence of
a conventional rhythm section means that this version of "What's Going
On" grooves more decidedly, but not until Frisell has set the stage with
a combination of ethereal, loop-driven atmospherics and long string trio
tones.
Some of Frisell's inherent appeal rests on the skewed edge he brings
to everything he approaches; he's a rare guitarist who can take a standard
chord, and turn it on its side by moving but a single note up or down
a semitone. Jagged and noisy, the intro to Unspeakable's opener, "1968," combines
angular harmonics, scraped strings and an apparent chaos of cross-rhythmic
complexity—apparent, because the group manages to magically coalesce
a mere minute into this 20-minute version of an originally four-minute
tune that's as propelled by Wollesen's Jim Keltner- like backbeat, as
it is the group's collective interplay, pushing the song towards a thundering
climax, and a seamless morph into a faster than usual version of The
Intercontinentals' "Baba Drame."
What's, perhaps, most remarkable about this Unspeakable sextet
is its ability to seamlessly marry structure and liberated thinking;
these are not traditional, improvisation-averse classical string players,
and so there's collective interpretation and empathic interplay taking
place throughout, even in its approach to linking defined songs together
with freely improvised segue sections. As capable as the group is of
propulsive material, it's as sweet as can be on Frisell's closer to Unspeakable, "Good
Bye, Good Bye, Good Bye," here almost exactly the same length and following
a similar structural roadmap, but, without Hal Wilner's samples and turntables,
reliant on Frisell's mad scientist bag of effects to lend it its otherworldly
complexion. - John Kelman - All About Jazz
For the complete Download Series review visit All
About Jazz here. |
