Sound Liberation, Days

Gene Pritsker's Sound Liberation holds in a kind of stylistic liquid suspension rap, hip hop, r&b, rock and modern composed classical elements. The new album Days (Composers Concordance 0013) continues the development we've heard in the earlier albums (type the group's name in the index window box above to access the other reviews). The voice of Chanda Rule is back, thankfully, because she is really good. And Gene's song-compositions are ever-strong. There is no flagging.

So we have songs adapted from Gene's operas, mostly Money but also The Varieties of Religious Experience, we have the single cuts Sound Liberation came out with a while back, "Days" being especially haunting.

It's rap that gives you a streetwise view of life in the rough--well rhythmed, worded and articulated by Gene himself and David Gotay (who also plays cello here!). It's hip hop in all you imagine. Gene adds heft with his guitar and there is a small string ensemble and other classical-associated instruments that give you another world yet it's all the same world, at least where Sound Liberation is concerned.

It all hangs together in ways you remember as you listen a few times. It's not just that things are combined that don't ordinarily come together, it is that they do so with a musical result that grabs you and does not let go.

It's probably their very best. Pritsker and Sound Liberation go where nobody else goes before, like Star Trek only we ARE in space now, in a very personal space, all of us, seeking community. You can find it in this music. Check it out!

Scott Fields, 5 Frozen Eggs

Alright, so today it's not a matter of rock. The blog never has been and I suppose never will be only that. Today we consider something by an electric guitarist and his ensemble, something in the realm of avant jazz, free jazz if you like that term.

Scott Fields is a player of genuine stature in this realm. And the recording is a well-healed excursion with a top-notch ensemble. The album is named 5 Frozen Eggs (Clean Feed 258).

Scott Fields amassed some signpost-like and/or more fleshed-out compositions for the date to help the ensemble set mood, tone and direction. Then he and the group cut loose with some very free and eloquent improvisations. The results are what one might expect if you know the players--Marilyn Crispell on piano, Hamid Drake, drums, Hans Sturm, acoustic bass, and of course Scott on electric.

The Fields guitar style is pretty (sometimes very) electric and filled with all kinds of melodic twists and turns. You get the feeling listening as he plays that there is no discernable gap between what he thinks musically and what comes out of the instrument. The mind envisions lines of broad harmonic ramification, the hands execute with style and drama. He's creating lines that sound like they are completely his--because they ARE.

The piano improvisations of Ms. Crispell are, as always, extraordinarily creative and impactful. Her playing has a logic to it and flows in unending inspiration, or so it sounds. Hans Sturm churns it up at the bottom with an excellent sound and feel. Hamid Drake comes across as poised, dead-on, yet very free. He swings in his very own way when called upon and he like the others can create much that's inspired in a spontaneous setting. The complete drummer, he is.

So there you have it--four excellent improvisers doing great work interactively and individually, some appropriate compositional frameworks within which that happens, and a guitar stylist who belongs to a category of one, Scott Fields.

It's music that stays essential and vibrant throughout. If I were rich and they were available, I'd have these folks play at my birthday party! The next best thing is 5 Frozen Eggs. Happy birthday to everybody with this one! Fields and company create music that celebrates life, freely and smartly.