Eric Revis Quartet, In Memory of Things Yet Seen

Bassist-composer-bandleader Eric Revis fields a quartet of note on In Memory of Things Yet Seen (Clean Feed 294). The music is distinguished by Eric's beautiful writing for the reeds, the interplay of fire and acute interactivity with Bill McHenry on tenor, Darius Jones on alto and, for two cuts, Branford Marsalis, the excellent drumming (and effective vibes) of Chad Taylor and, understandably, some excellent bass work from Eric.

The compositions set the bar high. They are very memorable and come back at you the more you listen. At the same time the band is primed and lucid, inspired by the numbers to get a fresh foothold on freedom-within-structure, new thing newly thinged. Darius Jones has been knocking me out lately and here he does again. But then Bill is no slouch, either. Branford is a welcome presence as guest to make it a pretty heavy three-horn front line.

I must say this disk rewards in great measure. It has everything going for it and sounds so today that it does one a heartening. This is the music of today!

Very recommended.

Shayna Dulberger, The Kill Me Trio, 1996

I reviewed this album once before, but it was a part of my Gapplegate Guitar Blog, Mach I, which was incorporated into my guitar sales site. I was forced to tear down that site quickly due to lack of funds. I was consequently unable to transfer all the reviews onto this site in time, and so Shayna Dulberger's The Kill Me Trio (self released) review was lost in cyberspace.

I haven't changed my mind on this one. It still sounds great. So I take a minute to say so again.

The trio is a good one--Shayna on acoustic bass, of course, then Darius Jones on a righteous alto sax and Jason Nazary on drums. What strikes me again this time around is how well the trio conveys the vibrant energy and excitement of "free jazz" in the ecstatic mode. They are fully charged and let loose with frenetically hip sounds.

The album has an equality of the three voices in that it forwards the interplay of the togetherness they emit. Shayna sounds beautiful, but then so do Darius and Jason. There are solo spots for all--and catch Shayna when she's out front--but then there are together spots too where three-way solos are working on all fronts.

The album might have been a sleeper then. We are awake to Shayna--or at least I am--so now we can look back and say, "yeah, nice one!" again. This time a bit more fervently.

Don't wait if you can score a copy. There may not be many left! Thanks Shayna. Time for a new one, I hope!

Adam Lane Trio, Absolute Horizon

Adam Lane has in the last several decades thrived as one of the very brightest stars on acoustic bass, a jazz composer-arranger of unique personality and poise, and a band leader of the highest rank.

A new CD of him in a bare-bones trio setting doing completely improvised music, Absolute Horizon (No Business NBCD 61), gives us a slightly different, but none the less welcome perspective. Here we have three excellent players--Adam, Darius Jones on alto sax and Vijay Anderson on drums--putting aside arranged compositions and going straight at it.

And what you might expect is what you get--a totally free-wheeling ride through the fertile, musically inventive collective imaginations of a trio of master avant jazzmen.

It all clicks. There are seven contrasting pieces with a generous playing time so you can imbibe a good long set of it all.

There is of course lots of Adam Lane's bass playing to dig here, arco or pizz, ensemble and solo. But then Darius and Vijay are primed and there are fully "actionable" sequences to get you off your mental seat and charge straight on through the music. ("Actionable" comes out of me almost involuntarily. It's a word I keep coming across in the many job descriptions I go through online every day in search of a JOB, you'll understand? It means that it invites or impells you to do something, in this case listen and dig.)

Some of this is flat-out, killer energy freedom, some of it is in a finessed, interactively subtle mood, some of it swings like hell, in time. It all swings in a wide sense, in or out of time. It shows you how some of the best can just let go and get a radically varied program of exciting new improvisations that showcase each as individuals yet get all kinds of group sounds and dynamics going. In fact this is something an avant jazz novice should hear if he or she needs to understand the importance of collective invention, of listening and proceeding in a totally free small group setting.

I have a couple more Adam Lane disks coming, so stay tuned. Meanwhile get a hold of this one!